If marines are required to research Jetpacks and exo's, why aren't aliens required
proteinstain
Join Date: 2003-12-14 Member: 24349Members
Join Date: 2003-12-14 Member: 24349Members
Comments
I don't know what could be done to make aliens more important to their comm without making them play like marines. They're kind of supposed to be the expendable, constantly rushing and attacking side.
wat.
they're required to research everything.... mines, shotguns, welders, weapons, armor, arcs, exos, jetpacks.
now here is the issue with the whole aliens have to research bile bomb and needing three hives. The beginning of the game is arguably the most important and more often then not determines the flow and outcome of the game. Marines in the beginning are required have a lot more responsibility as far as building and expanding. Aliens have commander cyst and drop buildings that build automatically. Once aliens clear an area they can quickly move onto the next and continue being offensive, marines cannot. Now what does this result in ?
aliens have freedom to go and constantly be on the offensive (destroying rts and harassing marines more aggressively) because they don't have any responsibility. At the most maybe a gorge to drop some hydras and clogs.The marines don't have this luxury, they have to build in order for comm to expand which slows them down quite a bit on top of aliens having movement speed advantage. granted this is countered by phase gates (sort of) but this takes time and money as well and still doesn't absolve the responsibility aspect.
the research upgrade part isnt the only thing, there is a bigger picture here. Scale-ablity is extremely important in a game like this, and right now the game doesnt scale very well.
In ns1 some aliens were forced to make sacrifice and gorge to build structures and expand taking them out of the offensive line, now in ns2 it doesnt matter since alien comm can handle it.
If the Khamm had to research lifeforms, they would probly never research anything that was not considered the "best". Lerks would most likely never get researched (spore seems to be the last thing researched anyway).
Just look at what has happened with upgrades. Now that they have to be researched individually, players will usually have only celerity (or carapace). I would prefer that upgrades went back to each upgrade chamber (shell/spur/veil) gives 1/3 strength of all upgrades for that chamber. 15 Tres per upgrade structure. 45 res gets full strength Cara and Regen, Celerity or Adrenaline, Cloaking or Silence.
As it stands, allowing the team to become any lifeform, but letting the Khamm augment them for Tres works out a lot better IMO, since alien players are already (usually) limited on what upgrades they can get.
The problem is that the aliens upgrade to become stronger than they already are, even as viable base units
The marines upgrade to break even and be viable.
I think this is a faulty train of thought because it implies that some lifeforms simply aren't worth investing in, when, because of different timings (i.e different costs and possible hive number requirements) and different roles, EACH lifeform should be equally viable. The lerk was in a terrible state for a long time in beta so of course nobody wanted to invest in it then. Of course you ARE going to see some games where somebody doesn't research lerks, just like you'll see some games where the marine comm doesn't go Exos. But is that necessarily a problem? Do we really need to cater to the kind of player that wants to play what he wants when he wants, completely disrespecting the fundamental logic behind the fps/rts hybrid?
In dota, in some gamemodes, you also can't play the hero or class you like. Yet I don't think anyone here will claim dota is an unsuccessful game because of that.
A lot of crappy things are successful, you shouldn't use the example that something is good because it is popular. George Bush was popular, child slavery is popular, and so is human trafficking.
If someone likes a game that limits them for "reasons" then, great, good on them. If I dislike it, then I won't have anything to do with it, and a bad game deserves every ounce of negativity it gets.
Anyway, I still think that the alien comm should be dropping eggs and remove alien Pres. PS: No more cysts/powernodes
On it! I'd at least like to test the idea on some servers, see how it runs. I think it very well has the potential to be not only more balanced but also more engaging in terms of teamwork and strategy. (Commanders will actually have control over team compositions, and when players get what)
Mmm, I see what you were saying now. It wasn't very clear from the title and post substance, but you're talking about just getting the ability to use the items needs to be researched.
I was reading it as if you were talking about it strictly from a game play perspective, in which you think that marines require JPs and exos just to win a game.
Anyway, alien forms have a gestation period, each and every time you want to go that lifeform. That, along with the natural danger of just being an egg, makes it pretty much equivalent in my eyes. Even with upgrades, every time an alien dies, he has to pick the upgrades again and gestate for a short period of time just to be able to get back into the action. Marines, once research is complete, have instant access to everything they have available, if res permits. They spawn with upgrades, so they will never be caught in a weakened state.
As for the whole alien freedom thing, it's kind of a double edged sword. Sure, aliens can constantly push, kill marine buildings, do whatever they want, and then get screwed because one marine happened to slip through their lines and axe down all their upgrades, or built a ninja PG (yeah, I know, it never happens anymore..) next to their hive. Tunnel vision happens easily when you don't have someone barking orders at you constantly, and it can cost you the game if your whole team happens to get afflicted by it while you "freely" run around and chomp whatever feels good.
Marines also have the ability to mimic alien play, for a res cost of course, through the use of MACs. A good marine comm will use them to build the bases and RTs while marines focus on pushing and clearing areas out. A lot of players don't know how to use them effectively though. They either build too many, wasting res.. or build only 1 or 2 and never pay attention to them so they are still relying on their marines for everything.
I get what you're saying. I just don't see any of it as a problem really. A lot of how a team plays comes down to the individual players, if someone is taking the lead and if someone is making the correct decisions. The difference between a defensive team and an aggressive team can literally come down to just simply changing your commander, regardless of which side you're on.