Random thought on game balance: player counts?

SavantSavant Join Date: 2002-11-30 Member: 10289Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
This is something that I have been pondering for the last little while as a stopgap measure until balance changes are made. (and if changes don't improve balance, this could also be considered until balance is reached.)

A basic factor in team balance that hasn't really been considered has been player count. While we have a team balance function to keep the teams even, should we be doing that?

In other words, if we have marines only winning 40% of the time, why not make 'balanced teams' on a 16 player server 9 marines and 7 aliens? If those player counts made it so marines won 48% of the time, why not try it as an interim measure? Since this is an asymmetrical game, player counts don't necessarily have to be exactly the same so long as both sides have an equal chance to win.

Again, this is just a random thought, so don't flip out over it folks. I just thought that it would be painfully easy to implement and adjust player counts while waiting for things to get more balanced.
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Comments

  • RoobubbaRoobubba Who you gonna call? Join Date: 2003-01-06 Member: 11930Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    Hmmm... I just wonder how easy it would be to playtest such a thing (in a statistically meaningful manner) before releasing it to the public.

    I'm an experimentalist though: it would need to be tested in some form or another. If it's possible to devise a sensible way of testing with meaningful results, then it should be tested.

    It would be a fairly drastic change, though - not something you could release into the wild to see how it goes.

    A more moderate step would be to allow marines to have 1 more player than aliens, or even teams, but not allow aliens to have 1 more player than marines.
  • RoobubbaRoobubba Who you gonna call? Join Date: 2003-01-06 Member: 11930Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    In fact, while I think about this, surely UWE already has all of this data available through their stats system: they capture the number of players on each team. It might be possible to break down the current stats to come up with win percentages as a function of relative team sizes...
  • EmooEmoo Ibasa Join Date: 2002-12-20 Member: 11198Members
    Roobubba wrote: »
    A more moderate step would be to allow marines to have 1 more player than aliens, or even teams, but not allow aliens to have 1 more player than marines.
    Those people who with equal team numbers join aliens instead of marines, as if aliens didn't need a bigger advantage.

    On the topic of player counts keep in mind absolute player counts not just relative counts. 12v12 seems easier for marines, 6v6 easier for aliens. There probably needs to be some sort of scaling based on player counts. Ideas I've seen thrown around have included:
    - Damage and health boosts for players or structures
    - Spawn times or egg replacement rates
    - Time to build structures
  • HamletHamlet Join Date: 2008-08-17 Member: 64837Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited February 2013
    I've seen so many games starting with 3M vs. 4A (reaching absurd heights at 3vs5 or my personal favourite: 2vs3)... it's not even funny any more.


    Then again, you can try to balance player counts all you want, if you pitch an All-Star professional Basketball team (or just 1 Michael Jordan) against a group of toddlers, who haven't even learned how to walk, guess what happens next?
    Another boring snorefest. Yay.
  • statikgstatikg Join Date: 2012-09-19 Member: 159978Members
    Of course that COULD work, but I can think of about a million preferable solutions.
  • SavantSavant Join Date: 2002-11-30 Member: 10289Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
    Roobubba wrote: »
    Hmmm... I just wonder how easy it would be to playtest such a thing (in a statistically meaningful manner) before releasing it to the public. ... It would be a fairly drastic change, though - not something you could release into the wild to see how it goes.
    I wasn't suggesting throwing caution to the wind, it was an off-the-top-of-my-head thought, since I have found games tend to be a bit more 'even' when there is an extra marine. While this is obvious, to a degree, I can't help but wonder if this could be used in the interim.
    A more moderate step would be to allow marines to have 1 more player than aliens, or even teams, but not allow aliens to have 1 more player than marines.
    It could be anything along those lines. My mention of 2 extra marines was totally an arbitrary number.

    Sure making it so that marines always had one extra player could also work. (Odd numbered max players)

    It would be easy enough to test though if any server ops want to test it. Just lower the server count to an odd number and enforce that the extra player goes marines.

    For the developers this would be a PAINFULLY easy thing to implement. All they need do is add in variables for maximum marine players and maximum alien players. Then let the admins decide if they want to test it out. Start with a one player differential and see how it goes. I honestly can't see one or two players swinging the balance extensively unless the games are very small. (in such a case it likely wouldn't work)

    This also won't help competitive games at all, since I doubt they want to have extra players who only play half of the games.

    Like I said, it's more just a random thought that could serve as a stopgap.





  • HughHugh Cameraman San Francisco, CA Join Date: 2010-04-18 Member: 71444NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    That's an interesting idea Savant! Asymmetrical team sizes would certainly not be out of place in an asymmetrical game like this. Perhaps you could recruit a clever programmer to make a mod, and see how it plays?

    For the vanilla game, it would perhaps be an 'impure,' 'shortcut' way out. In an ideal world, even sized teams will always have a win probability of 0.5. We just need to be careful and considered about getting there :)

    This is of course very important for the competitive community, as well!
  • SavantSavant Join Date: 2002-11-30 Member: 10289Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
    That's an interesting idea Savant! Asymmetrical team sizes would certainly not be out of place in an asymmetrical game like this.
    That's exactly what came to my mind. I've been thinking about the state of balance, and since a key aspect of the gameplay seems to favour the aliens being stronger by nature (since in melee range most of their attacks are by design more deadly than the respective marine attacks) I was thinking that instead of giving the marines 'more damage', give them more players.

    This would also seem to satisfy the desire many have to play on the marine team since 'guns' are more familiar to them. So it could be a win-win. With people stacking the marine portal, there would be a couple extra slots.

    In a way it almost seems 'too easy', which is why I'd really need to see how it played.
    Perhaps you could recruit a clever programmer to make a mod, and see how it plays?
    Are the variables already in the game to set player limits for each team independent of one another? It would also need to be friendly with autobalance, which it too might not be possible by default. I would think that this would likely be something best rolled in with a server admin mod.

    If it's not complex to code, could you not slip the variables into the game in a way that would be easy for server admins to tweak? Disabled by default, it could be something that could potentially also lead to new game modes as well.

    We need the variables first though. Is this something that has already been coded?
  • HughHugh Cameraman San Francisco, CA Join Date: 2010-04-18 Member: 71444NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    Savant wrote: »
    We need the variables first though. Is this something that has already been coded?

    Everything you need to do this is already exposed in the game Lua
  • AngeluszAngelusz Harmonic entropist Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18072Members, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester
    Savant wrote: »
    We need the variables first though. Is this something that has already been coded?

    Everything you need to do this is already exposed in the game Lua

    Also, go take a look in the modding forum. Several mods have been made in which the teams are unequally balanced (for instance a mod where a group of marines has to survive assaults by a single super-alien).

    You could ask those people to help you out. I imagine they can whip something up in mere minutes.
  • xDragonxDragon Join Date: 2012-04-04 Member: 149948Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited February 2013
    Tweak team sizes to fix balance issues is not the answer, in any way shape or form. Your treating the problem at that point, and not the cause. There is no reason why the aliens need to be stronger than the marines 1v1, adjusting that is just as simple as adjusting the players per team. If you were to attempt to adjust the latter, you would need to make tons of unnecessary adjustments all across the board for both teams.

    Generally speaking the balance issues are not about the damage marines deal, the marine weapon damages are actually stronger comparitively than NS1. I have said it time and time again, when you have aliens respawning (by default) at a rate that is atleast 3 to 4 times faster than the marines, you will never have even team balance with even class balance.

    Making spawn rate changes would probably take as long as this to code, and as a interium step would be the best place to start.
  • SavantSavant Join Date: 2002-11-30 Member: 10289Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
    xDragon wrote: »
    Tweak team sizes to fix balance issues is not the answer, in any way shape or form. Your treating the problem at that point, and not the cause. There is no reason why the aliens need to be stronger than the marines 1v1, adjusting that is just as simple as adjusting the players per team. If you were to attempt to adjust the latter, you would need to make tons of unnecessary adjustments all across the board for both teams.
    You're making this more complicated than it is. I never suggested that this is a 'solution' to the balance issues, and the developers aren't going to say "Problem solved, thanks Savant we can go home now."

    Remember, there is nothing that says teams have to be symmetric. We're in a game based on asymmetry, so why should we assume teams need to be even?
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    well... I do remember it was 'good' to have the marine the extra man, back in NS1.
    naturaly due to them lacking one because of the comm.

    But I wouldnt mind even in NS2.. aliens are clearly still ahead.

    Yeh, still a bandaid fix.

    preventing people from joining a full team however.. may help.
  • SavantSavant Join Date: 2002-11-30 Member: 10289Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
    The other aspect that I feel this could address is the imbalance that presents itself in larger games. While it's all well and good to balance for 8vs8, it's unlikely that the devs will balance for 16vs16 should performance ever get to the point where that is possible. In such a case (or even on 24 player servers) this kind of handicap could help to provide balance where game balance leaves off.

    It's something that's totally a server option though. Server operators are always looking for something that can help improve gameplay on their servers, and if this is able to, it may be able to fill that role in the interim.
  • SquishpokePOOPFACESquishpokePOOPFACE -21,248 posts (ignore below) Join Date: 2012-10-31 Member: 165262Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Worth a try, but don't expect people to enjoy sitting out of the action.
  • xDragonxDragon Join Date: 2012-04-04 Member: 149948Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow
    The problem is your also ignoring the blatant inherent non-scaling of ranged vs melee, and how the marines get more and more powerful with more players.... Changes like this would only serve to increase that issue.

    And i am not making it any more complicated that your suggestion is. The point stands that tweaking the spawn rates could be coded and completed in minutes, probably about the same time this change would take.

    Your also conceding by making that change that marines should die X times (say 1.3) for every time a skulk dies. No one likes being at a disadvantage, and making a change like this basically stays, yes marines are weaker and you can expect to die more there, which goes against making fun, balanced gameplay. Win rates in the end mean nothing about how fun the game is, which NS2 is living proof of currently (funner to play and loose on marines than play aliens).
  • ScardyBobScardyBob ScardyBob Join Date: 2009-11-25 Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    There is nothing wrong with this in theory (e.g. The Faded mod is good evidence that asymmetrical teams can work in a NS2 environment). However, much of the current game has been designed with equal number of players on each side. Changing that will likely require quite a few other fixes that may make it no easier to balance the game than from tweaking other parameters.
  • SavantSavant Join Date: 2002-11-30 Member: 10289Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
    Squishpoke wrote: »
    Worth a try, but don't expect people to enjoy sitting out of the action.
    Perhaps you misunderstand, autobalance doesn't apply here. Let's use a 16 player server an an example with a 2 player handicap.

    When people join the teams only 7 will be allowed to join aliens but 9 will be allowed to join marines. Teams will be asymmetrical, and there will be no autobalance keeping 2 dead marines in the spawn queue. It will be 9 vs 7. Since aliens are a bit stronger, this might negate it enough so that things are more balanced.
    xDragon wrote: »
    The problem is your also ignoring the blatant inherent non-scaling of ranged vs melee, and how the marines get more and more powerful with more players.... Changes like this would only serve to increase that issue.
    Read my followup two posts above yours. As I noted, on large servers we could flip the imbalance the OTHER way. With 24 players perhaps it is 13 aliens vs 11 marines. That's the beauty of it is that it can be adjusted either way. It could also be just a 1 player difference and there would be an odd number of players on the server.
    And i am not making it any more complicated that your suggestion is. The point stands that tweaking the spawn rates could be coded and completed in minutes, probably about the same time this change would take.
    Spawn rates are a whole other animal, and it doesn't take into account that a dead marine is still dead. Spawning faster doesn't help when you are being outpowered by the other team. Superior numbers will always best a superior spawn rate. (especially for marines who can build more IPs.)
    Your also conceding by making that change that marines should die X times (say 1.3) for every time a skulk dies. No one likes being at a disadvantage, and making a change like this basically stays, yes marines are weaker and you can expect to die more there, which goes against making fun, balanced gameplay.
    Have you ever looked at the scoreboards at the end of a game? Marines die more ALREADY with balanced teams. Usually they die quite a bit more. So your point is moot since that is the status quo now.
    ScardyBob wrote: »
    However, much of the current game has been designed with equal number of players on each side. Changing that will likely require quite a few other fixes
    It wouldn't since this is not meant to be a replacement for proper balance. Yeah the game was designed to be played with the same number of players, but it was also designed to be balanced 50/50. If the balance isn't there, then it stands to reason that giving a team another player will influence that balance. To what extent remains to be seen, but I've been in a couple games where marines had two more people than marines and the autobalance was turned off. While 2 games out of the hundreds I've played is a really small sample, I didn't find anything amiss.
  • ScardyBobScardyBob ScardyBob Join Date: 2009-11-25 Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    xDragon wrote: »
    Your also conceding by making that change that marines should die X times (say 1.3) for every time a skulk dies. No one likes being at a disadvantage, and making a change like this basically stays, yes marines are weaker and you can expect to die more there, which goes against making fun, balanced gameplay. Win rates in the end mean nothing about how fun the game is, which NS2 is living proof of currently (funner to play and loose on marines than play aliens).
    Except that's pretty much how it went in NS1 with marines vs higher lifeforms. It was pretty common for lerks/fades/onos (at least moderately skilled ones) to go much higher than a 1:1 death ratio vs marines. That put the marines at a disadvantage without driving down the fun factor.
    Savant wrote: »
    It wouldn't since this is not meant to be a replacement for proper balance. Yeah the game was designed to be played with the same number of players, but it was also designed to be balanced 50/50. If the balance isn't there, then it stands to reason that giving a team another player will influence that balance. To what extent remains to be seen, but I've been in a couple games where marines had two more people than marines and the autobalance was turned off. While 2 games out of the hundreds I've played is a really small sample, I didn't find anything amiss.
    That's because imbalances from skill typically overwhelm imbalances due to playercount or underlying game mechanics. Adding two random rookies to your side isn't going to help much if your playing against someone like Archaea.

    Also, Yuuki largely made this point before, except with respect to any variable in NS2. However, the problem is that some variables are more interconnected than others, of which equal playercounts is a big one in NS2. Your solution is like trying to increase the height of a house by raising its foundation after its been built. Its totally possible, but it would likely be easier and less prone to complications if you just made the roof a little taller instead.
  • SavantSavant Join Date: 2002-11-30 Member: 10289Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
    ScardyBob wrote: »
    That's because imbalances from skill typically overwhelm imbalances due to playercount or underlying game mechanics. Adding two random rookies to your side isn't going to help much if your playing against someone like Archaea.
    I'm not trying to address that nor would I try. If the teams are 'stacked' then that's a whole other problem. I'm looking at balance from an INTERNAL perspective.
    However, the problem is that some variables are more interconnected than others, of which equal playercounts is a big one in NS2. Your solution is like trying to increase the height of a house by raising its foundation after its been built. Its totally possible, but it would likely be easier and less prone to complications if you just made the roof a little taller instead.
    I don't see it that way at all. The player count is actually a variable that was unbalanced throughout NS1 by nature of marines having a commander. This asymmetry existed long ago. Furthermore, at present the teams can be off by 1 player either way before autobalance kicks in. If you have 8vs7 the server won't be keeping a player on the team with 8 sitting in the spawn queue. This is yet another imbalance that is built into the game.

    I am suggesting to alter player balance, since it is a variable that is easy to adjust and doesn't require adjusting other game variables. Each additional player will add a percentage to a team's chance to win. What percentage that is would need to be tested. However, I can't see one additional marine in a 15 player game flipping balance from 60/40 for aliens to 40/60. Heck, even if the teams were 9vs7 with two extra marines I can't see balance flipping that far. The impact a player has on the marines is not as significant as the impact an alien player has. It's why it takes 5 marines to take down an Onos.

    Seeing as marines tend to win more on the larger servers, it does stand to reason that altering the player count will indeed change the balance. The key is to see how much it affects the game at a given level. Once that is determined we can figure out whether this kind of mod will have any use.

  • ZekZek Join Date: 2002-11-10 Member: 7962Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
    How do you communicate to players what the correct ratio is? Players won't even be able to tell at a glance if teams are unbalanced or not. If it's 9v8, do I join the marines or the aliens? Who knows? This also makes the team balance more fragile in the event that an alien player leaves since each of them are more important. I don't think it's a good road to go down, everything is simpler if the game is designed for even teams.
  • SavantSavant Join Date: 2002-11-30 Member: 10289Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
    Zek wrote: »
    How do you communicate to players what the correct ratio is? Players won't even be able to tell at a glance if teams are unbalanced or not. If it's 9v8, do I join the marines or the aliens? Who knows?
    Just as happens now, if you try and join a team that is 'full', you get a message telling you to join the other team. A welcome message can also indicate team sizes.
    This also makes the team balance more fragile in the event that an alien player leaves since each of them are more important. I don't think it's a good road to go down
    We've *already* gone down this road. NS1 had asymmetric teams since aliens had no commander. So aliens always had an 'extra body' on the playing field.

    Yeah losing a player impacts the game, but that is true for either team by nature of how little forgiveness there is in the game.

    Let's remember that as it stands right now, any team can have one more player than the other and not trigger the autobalance measure. Add this to reserved slots on many servers. There is never even teams on those servers because the max server count is an even number, and there is an uneven number of reserved slots. So uneven teams are nothing new, they happen all the time.

    My suggestion is that we use this to our advantage for sake of balance. Given how many people tend to like playing marine, this also helps provide more slots for them.

    Aliens win more often. We all know this. It's an uncontestable fact that marines only win 40% of games right now. So why not give the marine team an extra player and see how that impacts balance. Given the games I have been in (with an extra marine) it can only help. That's why I suggested 2 in my example. IMHO it would take two extra marines to eliminate the 20% difference. We can start at one though and see how it goes.
  • JAMESEARLJONOSJAMESEARLJONOS Join Date: 2012-12-15 Member: 175155Members
    Putting the team sizes to 9 v 7 would be a disaster and result in the win rate drastically skewing in the other direction. Given the tendency of pub players to stay in comm all game, you would effectively be changing the combat sizes to 8 v 6. The player being lost as a result of needing a commander has a dramatically disproportionate impact on the team with less players.

    Just being blunt here, but do you how could you possibly think that 6 skulks match up anywhere near favorable against 8 marines? Against that sort of number disparity, you'd need the absolute derpiest stormtrooper tier marines to lose. Even though crappy marines lose far more than they should against equal numbers of skulks, it's pretty rare to see skulks winning engagements when they're significantly outnumbered.

    Honestly, the biggest problem in marine win rate has more to do with terrible pub commanding than any sort of real balance problem. So long as you have 95% of awful pub commanders rushing phase gates and putting off upgrades until 7-8 minutes into the game, you're going to continue to have terrible marine win rates. The standard strategy being employed in most pubs is one that ensures that a subpar aiming marine team will never be able to push effectively.

    The most effective thing you can convince a pub marine commander to do is delay phase gates and rush arms lab/armor upgrades. Armor 3 marines are one of the most obnoxious things in the game for aliens to deal with, and you can get it by 6:30 on 3-4 RTs. Marines need to push early to win the game, and you're not going to get significant pushing power out of pub marines that are left at 100/30 for most of the game.
  • ScardyBobScardyBob ScardyBob Join Date: 2009-11-25 Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    edited February 2013
    Savant wrote: »
    We've *already* gone down this road. NS1 had asymmetric teams since aliens had no commander. So aliens always had an 'extra body' on the playing field.
    This is not exactly true, as though the aliens didn't have a comm, at least one (or more on larger servers) alien had to go gorge to drop/build the alien structures. A 6v6 match of NS1 would frequently involve only 5v5 in combat at any given time, which is the playercount that is most important in NS1/2.

  • OnosFactoryOnosFactory New Zealand Join Date: 2008-07-16 Member: 64637Members
    I think there are a few 'bigger player count = better game' threads, prolly is, can we get enough 8 or 10 player teams to make up the 200/250 needed comp players to keep the comp sceen going?
  • deathst4rdeathst4r Join Date: 2003-08-10 Member: 19365Members
    edited February 2013
    While playing a game of 6 vs 6 as the marine commander against a good and coordinated alien team can be absolutely super-stressful, even with good shooting marines, if you want to respond quickly constantly and do a good job... playing 9 vs 9 with the same requirements is nearly impossible, because of the higher number of threats/threads you need to respond to in the same time, especially if your team doesn't constantly check the minimap or simply doesn't care for structures but for frags.

    A high player count will almost force the Khammander to go shift hive first because of the fixed egg spawn rate... I like a bit of variety more than fixed patterns.

    A high player count game is especially awful on some public servers, if your average pubber marine player runs around randomly and performs actions that were never ordered and are just not sensible to do. Theoretically marines benefit from a higher player count, because 1 or 2 of them could constantly babysit and weld the bases or do a rush/whack-a-bile/save-RTs patrol, 1 or 2 could cap RTs and build, while the others could divide into 2 pressure teams or form one large pressure team for hive pushes... but in reality most of the time there is one guy who has to prevent the majority of his sheep to do something stupid or has to convince them nicely to do something totally basic like welding a burning and smoking phasegate... "Nah, me no welder, me buy second shotgun and die far away in hive."

    Oh, there are so many pub anecdotes... Most of the time there is no real teamplay on pubs. There is a German phrase describing, when in a teamwork situation nobody cares and everyone thinks that the others will do the work: "TEAM - toll, ein anderer macht's." (TEAM - nice, another guy does it).

    Marine commanding would be a lot less stressful, if marine players actually cared for more than frags, supported the comm and the team and developed a strategic game sense... When that happens, I shall buy everyone a Hughnicorn. :D
  • XariusXarius Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    There is nothing wrong with this in theory (e.g. The Faded mod is good evidence that asymmetrical teams can work in a NS2 environment). However, much of the current game has been designed with equal number of players on each side.
    I really don't think this is the case. In NS 1 teams were designed to have equal numbers of players but aliens had a whole different economic system to account for the fact that one higher alien lifeform will need multiple marines to take out. In NS 2 they took away that economic difference, giving all the aliens the ability to go higher lifeforms at the same time without making ANY significant changes to the way these lifeforms function.
  • elodeaelodea Editlodea Join Date: 2009-06-20 Member: 67877Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    This is a great idea Savant. I'm not sure why no-one has thought of it before.

    Using our current winrates
    0.60a = 0.4m
    m=1.5a

    Therefore it should really be 7 aliens to 10.5 marines. 9 to 7 is clearly unbalanced to common knowledge. I also recommend adding a mechanic that nerfs one random player's damage, hp, res income, movement speed, FOV etc. by 50% if their team's allowed player limit ends in 0.5.

    Sounds like this should fix the game right up.
  • RoobubbaRoobubba Who you gonna call? Join Date: 2003-01-06 Member: 11930Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    deathst4r wrote: »
    While playing a game of 6 vs 6 as the marine commander against a good and coordinated alien team can be absolutely super-stressful, even with good shooting marines, if you want to respond quickly constantly and do a good job... playing 9 vs 9 with the same requirements is nearly impossible, because of the higher number of threats/threads you need to respond to in the same time, especially if your team doesn't constantly check the minimap or simply doesn't care for structures but for frags.

    Oh god this +1

    I've been doing more comming than I ever did in NS1, and I'm generally really enjoying it (trying to get as broad a skillset and experience in this game as possible to make myself a better player). However, there's always at least 1 guy on the team moaning at you for something: I hate this - I'm trying my best and want to learn with constructive criticism MOST WELCOME. I'm not an RTS player, so I don't do a lot of things at once particularly well, though I'm definitely improving in this regard. When you have 5 different people asking for meds, ammo, that RT between your close spawns (seriously, I told you I'm not taking the RT, I sent you there to pressure their hive...), upgrades, buildings under attack - yeah for an old FPS-only muppet like me that's tough to keep on top of. At least in 6v6 I can focus on being more careful with structure placement (one of my biggest shortcomings at the moment), accurate medspamming when required and upgrades without having to babysit the 3 extra greens, or worse whites, who won't follow any kind of order and just don't help the team!
    I have tried comming in a 20-man server. It's not pretty. How anyone gets any effective comming done in 24p servers is beyond me.
  • xDragonxDragon Join Date: 2012-04-04 Member: 149948Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow
    If you really think higher lifeforms were more powerful than marines in NS1, im sorry to say but you were most likely playing a different game. They offered an advantage over a vanilla marine, even with higher tier weapons, sure. But a good jetpack hmg/sg could easily match fade KDRs and fade vs jp was a toss up who would win.

    Being at a disadvantage because of tech is completely different from being at a disadvantage because of class balance.
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