Consensus on Balance: Two Scenarios
|strofix|
Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165453Members
Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165453Members
I want to get peoples general opinion on two common scenarios which occur in NS2, in terms of which team is stronger at the time, assuming perfectly balanced teams, at an average skill level. If any other circumstances would need to be considered, mention them, as well as their effect.
Scenario One
Marines hold 3 tech points, while aliens hold 2 (typical 5 tech point map).
The marines have shotguns, welders and grenade launchers researched, as well as a single fully tiered prototype tech (either jetpacks or dual exo suits). They also have level 3 weapons and level 2 armor.
The aliens have every upgrade available to them.
Scenario Two
Marines have two tech points and have researched all tech available to them.
Aliens have three hives and have researched all tech available to them.
For me:
Scenario One: Marines
Scenario Two: Aliens
Scenario One
Marines hold 3 tech points, while aliens hold 2 (typical 5 tech point map).
The marines have shotguns, welders and grenade launchers researched, as well as a single fully tiered prototype tech (either jetpacks or dual exo suits). They also have level 3 weapons and level 2 armor.
The aliens have every upgrade available to them.
Scenario Two
Marines have two tech points and have researched all tech available to them.
Aliens have three hives and have researched all tech available to them.
For me:
Scenario One: Marines
Scenario Two: Aliens
Comments
It's hard to say which has team has the upper hand in each scenario, because I'm missing some important parameters (active res nodes, pres accumulations, lifeforms on the field etc.).
Say Docking, with marines holding cafe and gen (shut up, it could happen), marines if they orginise have a good chance.
If aliens had mostly lerks or anything higher than skulk really, then they would most likely win.
And I think marines with 2 tech points vs aliens with 3 tech points should be fair too.
But how is this possible, will you ask. Simple: While marines are slightly stronger in the first case, they also need to defend more territory. This gives the aliens the chance to turn the tide because it's easier for them to get one tech point free.
In the 2nd case, because marines lose nothing real important with the 3rd tech point, it also isn't that unbalanced. Also the alien 3rd hive upgrades aren't this strong, so they are suddenly overpowered like they were in NS1.
Why am I thinking that way?
Because I think it is very boring when you can determine by the mid game who has already won the game. There is no fun or tension when you already know the outcome just because team X has Y tech points. The skill of the teams should decide which team wins, and this should be open until the last minute. In the other case you will simply see even more concedes with 2 hives / 2 CCs as there are already happening. Because it is boring to play out a game where you know your enemy is overpowered by its tech.
Yes the first example will be probably a Marine victory and the second probably Alien victory, but that is because in first example Marines seem to have clear advantage in map control and res gain (from the limited information we can see) and because in second example it is Aliens who seem to have that advantage. Thus the victory of Marines in first and Aliens in second scenario comes less from any perceived imbalance and more from assumption that the winning team is in far better position and has advantage in map control and res-gain.
A bit more tinkering with examples that makes clear that the teams are in equal position outside of tech-points and tech level would help.
We have a plethora of differing opinions being brought to light, showing a fundamental difference in how each player perceives the current state of balance, and this is all you can add?
It must be awful living in a fantasy world as you do.
What does it matter that Marines would win, if they " have shotguns, welders and grenade launchers researched, as well as a single fully tiered prototype tech (either jetpacks or dual exo suits). They also have level 3 weapons and level 2 armor."
Are you trying to demonstrate how divided player opinion is? The relative strength or balance of each tech point? Lemme try addressing your actual thread title, the closest thing to having a point- "Consensus on Balance".
So are you trying to get us to agree that Aliens are OP? Are the two scenarios suppose to be suggestive of this? There already is a consensus on which side is better. It might be a divided opinion, but by and large, it's pretty clear that most people agree on aliens being better (and that's a consensus).
In theory I agree with your assesment. In practice I think your assesment would only pan out 60-70% of the time.
In my opinion, three tech point marines at the 10+ minute mark completely steam-roll 2 hive aliens. It isn't even a competition. By that point, when the aliens can only field 2, maybe 3 Onos, and they come up against Exos? They just get destroyed immediately.
But add one hive, and suddenly the tables turn completely. In fact, I still think that, even with three hives, the aliens are still mildly less powerful than the marines, considered in a vacuum. However, 3 hives typically comes with very little marine territory and no resources, which is typically bad news for the marines.
The balance situation has always puzzled me for the following reasons (opinions):
Marines are more powerful than aliens in late tech.
Marines kill hives very quickly.
It is ridiculously easy to defend as marines.
And yet marines lose the vast majority of 15 minute + games. And I'm pretty sure most people don't see an imbalance in the early game.
This goes back to a point I tried to make a while ago which is: Everybody knows the game is imbalanced, but I don't think anybody knows why. I just thought that, this perceived "switch" that occurs between 2 hive aliens vs full tech marines and 3 hive aliens vs full tech marines would yield some information.
The reason why marines lose more then aliens is because aliens need less teamplay and skill. An alien com just needs to shout go to a or b in pub and 5 of 7 field player will go there because they listen. the 2 others who don't tend to put pressure on other parts of the map which conveniously helps overall play.
On rines the lategame actually takes more coordination (as in arc rush or even exo), besides the coorindation they also need to keep checking the map because their foward movement could mean that a solo gorge whacks a base. This means lategame for rines it actually much harder then latgame aliens because a single handed marine can't do that much of damage to a base as a single alien can. Besides that everybode on alien tends to get the "Follow onos" idea. But not so many marines tend to do the same with exo's because half of the time they are filled with some goof who thinks he's han solo and can take on a hive single handed.
In short:
Rines lategame = harder. Exo need to much support to get the same push effect as onos where onos can just run away.
Aliens = more easy latgame cause single handed rine can't do lot of damage so just focus on large groups + everyone folows onos.
Just my thoughts. It's not that the game is "MAJORLY" imbalanced it's just that rines are a little harder to play, and therefore lose a bit more. Im not sure wheter this should be countered by game mechanics.
So basically what your scenarios say in reality is, what happens when marines have 5RTs and aliens have 3 vs when aliens have 5 RTs and marines have 3-4. The answer is obvious and for obvious reasons.
You live in a fantasy world where you think your posts aren't anything but horrible failures of logic that everyone is sick of hearing.
In many cases, the actual winning team is determined when the game starts by which one has the more skilled players. However, it usually takes 5-10 min for this to show up as number of tech/res nodes captured, map control, tech researched, etc.
Current balance can really be attributed to 3 main things in public play - skulk movement offering too much air control allowing evenly skilled skulk vs marine fights to usually end with the skulk winning, gorges being able to clog up areas very easily and effectively with 3 instant hydras and clogs, especially in larger games with more gorges, and alien respawn rates. There are many other problems, but fix those three and you could probably get the game close to 50/50 pretty quickly.
That doesnt touch the late game imbalances, but there are many factors there, some of which are straight imbalance, and others are broken or poor mechanics.
If you choose to look at it in terms of that.
I was looking at it in terms of simple ability to fight. In those two scenarios, if there was a "fight", who would win?
If you say you need more information, then we aren't looking at things the same way. Its like the 65/35 balance figure we have now. In any game played, this figure dominates the probability of each team winning. It doesn't matter whose playing, it doesn't matter what map it is, it doesn't matter where a team starts. You can still use this figure to effectively and accurately apply some probability of victory and defeat. Its still useful.
So, if two teams had to "fight", whether it be 1v1, 8v8, 3v5, 4v4, skulks, Exos, onos, lerk, anything. Who would win?
To me, as I stated, scenario 1 is a marine victory, scenario 2 is an alien victory. But as we know, many games are at the 3/2 tech point stage, and then it goes the aliens way. If most people also view marines as stronger in the 3/2 scenario, then what is it that is causing marines to lose in that scenario?
Most people are probably thinking "bile bomb" right now. Oh all you need as aliens as a single 10 res life form and the base is leveled! But how can that be? One marine. A single player defending, and it is essentially no longer possible to pull off. You can't tell me that noone has ever thought of that. Gorges in a vacuum are easy to stop, why are they hard to stop in practice though?
From my perspective, the key to this balance issue lies in the transition stage from powerful 3/2 marines to a dead marine team. I just wanted to know whether others viewed the marines as more powerful as well.
?!?
If marines don't control 3 Hives at least until they have teched up it's a stomp?!
Aliens holding 3 Hives means they control 5 RTs(3 in Hives and 2 between the Hives) which means they pretty much win.
Virtually all good games start off with Marines controlling 3 Hives or with a constant struggle for the 5th Tech point right until the first Onos emerge.
The fact that you focussed on tech points while very much neglecting RTs makes this thread worthless though...
This is a a wholly inaccurate way of looking at things. NS is largely a resource war. If you have fades come out when marines are still on low upgrades, that has a massive impact on the game, if you have onos come out when marines don't have jetpacks, that makes a massive impact on the game. If you have enough marines able to afford exos to put a few on base defence and a few pushes, that is very powerful. If aliens can afford quite a few onos....these things make or break games.
The vaccum situation you describe in which fully teched up teams engage in some sort of warcry suicide charge is holy irrelevant. If there was a vaccum my completely irrelevant answer would be, aliens would lose with a perfect composition of umbra, gorges bilebombing and healing, and multiple onos because a bunch of full health exos do a billion heavy damage and can cover each other from range.
However just to point out the very beginning of whats wrong with that, you couldn't have that because you would need marines to weld and aliens woudl go back and heal and wait for the exos to put themselvse into bad spots...
You think the raw power of a team is wholly irrelevant?
I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree then.
I also don't understand how it can be an "inaccurate way of looking at things". I never said that that was how games were won. I never said that that was how the game should be played. I merely asked a question. You interpreted the rest yourself.
i agree with you, but higher skill is more prevalent in competitive and small games where players know what to do. i think both statikg and you are saying the same thing in the end, it just depends on how the player in question thinks, rather than which is more important.
from the resource war perspective, a player knows that he must capture resource nodes and kill his opponents' resource nodes, or gain control of a specific portion of the map to deny his opponents from another. high skill becomes a means of which he uses to accomplish this goal.
a player who is highly skilled knows that by killing his opponents, he's effectively shutting them out from his teammates or a particular area in the map, which then allows his teammates to carry out their building/capturing/killing jobs with less difficulty.
i think both are really the same thing. it's just a question of whether the "resource war" or the "crowd control" way of thinking comes into play first.