Marine fun factor
DC_Darkling
Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Ok.. 2 main goals / questions for this topic:
* Do people agree with my view?
* If yes, what to do about this & motivate devs to do stuff about it.
Lets start with kharaa side as a example. Ignoring ideal play, a skulk can:
- sneak/stealth
- be that superfast all over the map doom machine
- kill rts & structures in good time.
It basicly can be played in different ways, depending on preference, skill & upgrades.
Gorge can
- heal
- build
- attack
- destroy.
And this holds basicly true for any lifeform.. There are many ways to do your 'job'.
Now marines on the other hand, its build, defend and shoot.
In reality means that for most of the match you will be holding the same weapon. Higher tier weapons are more support weapons, so must also be used sparingly.
And herein lies the problem.. For most of the match you will be shooting the same gun, building the same stuff (namely rts), and defending the same stuff all over again. And while you do this.. you are still using the same gear.
Armor & weapon upgrades are nice, but those are passive. Aliens get mainly active upgrades. (counting certain chamber ups like silence, cloak, celerity etc as active due to you can use a better playstyle with them)
So.. if you lot agree, what can we do? What can we do to give marines, a little more different goodies earlier game with end goal to kill aliens.
* Do people agree with my view?
* If yes, what to do about this & motivate devs to do stuff about it.
Lets start with kharaa side as a example. Ignoring ideal play, a skulk can:
- sneak/stealth
- be that superfast all over the map doom machine
- kill rts & structures in good time.
It basicly can be played in different ways, depending on preference, skill & upgrades.
Gorge can
- heal
- build
- attack
- destroy.
And this holds basicly true for any lifeform.. There are many ways to do your 'job'.
Now marines on the other hand, its build, defend and shoot.
In reality means that for most of the match you will be holding the same weapon. Higher tier weapons are more support weapons, so must also be used sparingly.
And herein lies the problem.. For most of the match you will be shooting the same gun, building the same stuff (namely rts), and defending the same stuff all over again. And while you do this.. you are still using the same gear.
Armor & weapon upgrades are nice, but those are passive. Aliens get mainly active upgrades. (counting certain chamber ups like silence, cloak, celerity etc as active due to you can use a better playstyle with them)
So.. if you lot agree, what can we do? What can we do to give marines, a little more different goodies earlier game with end goal to kill aliens.
Comments
It would be nice to see something different.
To quote Six Days in Sanjii "....the only thing nastier than a TSF marine, is a TSF engineer. It’s been years since they had a new toy to play with, and they have fertile and violent imaginations."
I would have loved to see an alternative to the basic marine something along a combat engineer's style. Give em the old LMG so they trade a little firepower. then provide some goodies like satchel charges, better welders, etc. Maybe an engineer could manually power a structure.
2 cents deposited.
I don't think this is a problem YET, maybe as the game ages. I do think it's easily solvable though, just throw a stack of new weapons with different fire modes and micro-transaction parts (1-3res in armory) to modify your weapon with.
A quick but quite drastic way would be to trivialize shotgun, grenade launcher and flamethrower. Typically you don't get to play with these guns alot, cept maybe shotty, but if you'd drastically reduce their effectiveness and cost/research cost, maybe make them scale with weapon level more... Yeah that'd probably be a horrible solution.
But yeah.
I think marines need some more early personal res options. Not neccesarily things to become more powerful, but things to change play style.
Yeh, no solution from my side either, hence this is in general discussion.
And - for 200 Tres, summon Arnold Schwarzenegger with a coffin for the alien comm, and a machine gun in the other hand.
You forgot a category, Attack.
When you lump things in those general categories, that's all the Aliens do as well.
Marines can do all those things you listed as well. Marines can certainly be sneaky (crouch walking), If it wasn't possible you wouldn't see ninja phasegates or ninja marines taking out alien upgrades. Can be fast with jetpacks (which are incredibly cheap). Can kill rts and structures in good time, especially with weapons 3. Marines can heal via welder.
As marines you get flamethrower/grenadelauncher/shotgun/mines/jetpack/exo/welder to play differently. When you die you lose these things.
As alien you get different lifeforms, gorge/lerk/fade/onos to play differently. When you die you lose these things.
The one argument you could make is that the lifespan of these ways to play differently is much shorter on the marine side... which makes it seem like you are just using the same basic weapon all the time. In general, the lifespan of someone changing classes on the Alien side is much longer.
Now, with marines, their 'upgrades' are the ability to buy weapons. So the marine 'evoltion' is going from LMG to a shotgun for example. The problem is that this doesn't buy them one iota of additional survivability. While the commander can buy armor upgrades, their significance is very narrow. Aside from the early game where armor one makes a marine a three bite kill, the other armor upgrades don't really offer the marine any protection against the higher evolution aliens. While some may crow about how 'a dropped marine weapon can potentially be recovered', the reality is that a recovered weapon *still* doesn't change the survivability for the marine. A second consideration for marines, is that Charlie has said he doesn't want any marine weapon to be a straight upgrade that makes a lesser weapon obsolete. That's why people will never see the HMG in NS2. While effective in NS1, it made the LMG obsolete. This is something Charlie wanted to get away from.
To tie this all in with the OP, with regard to variety, the marines really only have the EXO. This could have been good if the EXO was multipurpose and hard to kill, but instead it is a very narrow purpose and easy to kill. So it ends up being no different than a stock marine.
What complicates this more is that the aliens - despite having more evolution choices - have fewer responsibilities.
Marine responsibilities:
Build structures in base
Secure and build extractors
Secure and build up a second tech point
Defend against base attacks
Alien responsibilities:
Kill marines and their stuff.
That's it. They don't have to build structures in base, they don't have to build harvesters, that don't have to build their hive or anything else. The Khamm doesn't have to coordinate alien movement in order to have structures built. Aliens run off and kill stuff while the Khamm does his thing.
So while aliens have little to do and lots of evolutions to do it with, marines have lots to do and no alternatives. (especially since EXOs can't build or weld)
Given how often marines die (due to a lack of survivability upgrades), they spend most of their time as an LMG marine.
Alternatives? How about giving marines 'unlocks' in exchange for lack of survivability. Instead of 20 p-res buying a single use shotgun, how about 20 res UNLOCKS a shotgun. Once unlocked the marine can change his loadout at an armory. (he spawns with base loadout) So once a marine buys his shotgun unlock, he doesn't have to buy it again. *HOWEVER*, this would end the system where marines drop weapons. We could leave in the ability for the comm to drop weapons, and those weapons would be recoverable upon death as is now. Marines with unlocks would be tied to the weapon and it would not be able to be dropped. (picking up another weapon would make their weapon disappear)
This would allow marines to become innately stronger as the game progresses, which is what they need right now. I think if marines had a chance to spend longer playing with different weapons, it might help to add to variety.
I like the idea, but I think it would cause some imbalance issues and some additional changes would have to go along with it. The main imbalance issues is that it would make it even more difficult for a mid/late game Skulk to take out any marine also the marines themselves would have much better p.res if they don't have to buy more stuff when they die.. which means you would see more exo's everywhere.
you missed my point. its not killing perse, its the variety in doing so. Even a base skulk how more free ways to kill a marine early to mid game, then a marine shall ever have.
2. "Unlock" mines.
3. ???????
4. PROFIT!!!
aliens get different things per lifeform.
Mines help with makes the problem less, not solving it.
Of course, any of these changes would require other balance changes: effectiveness of scan and the observatory, or... who knows.
The problem with the marine/alien asymmetry, is that the marine commander requires the cooperation of human players. One could argue, this is what asymmetry is all about. But it's really not, because alien commanders' don't have to deal with this, or constantly direct human players to be more effective. Relying on the volatile nature of people in order to win is pretty unfair I think, especially when need to be so precise as a marine comm.
Reducing micromanagement and/or making fights slightly easier for marines might solve things (and make it less monotonous, hopefully)!
Yeah marines might have more p-res, but they can only wield one weapon at a time *and* weapons still have to be researched. Like I said, no weapon drops, so it's not like one person can unlock a flamethrower and the other a grenade launcher and then grab the other if a person dies. Don't underestimate how much p-res is saved with recycling of weapons. One of the main reasons they are allowed to recycle these weapons is since they have reduced survivability. If a marine has a shotgun, it's just as deadly no matter how much p-res he may have.
Anyway, it was just a passing thought. Right now marines could use some ingenuity.
To add more variety and do this, perhaps the effectiveness of the 1-time unlock weapons could be slightly reduced, while adding more disposable items that cost res, like mines and other not yet thought of stuff.
If you get enough disposable items marines can buy from the armory, you could make the weapons being unlocked to the marines personal res only without having to be researched by the comm first and have all the disposable items be researched by the comm.
By changing weapons into 'unlocks' it makes individual marines choose a tech path. Hey, we could possibly even add in the armor/weapon upgrades. Say 5 p-res for each one? So after the comm researches it, the marines have to buy it for it to become part of their loadout. (The exception being the EXOs, which due to their cost and nature would receive whatever armor upgrade is researched as it does now.) The only thing that would not be 'static' would be any consumable like mines.
If they unlock a shottie and a grenade launcher, they would be able to switch back and forth at an armory. Each one would give them flexibility to respond to a given set of circumstances. Yet for average Joe pubber, he may just play the shottie for the rest of the game. His choice. Now this is only theorycraft, so I have no idea how this would play out. However, I think it would add more variety as marines are able to have more control over their characters.
more variety is definitely wanted. Here are some recent ideas i've had.
weapon variety: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2065736/#Comment_2065736
Door and vent welding http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/122018/doors-mechanics
This would add quite a lot of depth and options for both teams.
edit awww, the quote doesnt retain my colours
I'm not sure why but ns2 fails to capture the tension and creepyness ns1 had, and for marines i never feel like "this is cool i'm building up the best base, haha stupid aliens". Its somehow gotten too basketbally where its much too fair etc.
The only way i can describe it is that, I feel like im a unit in a strategy game in ns2 - where as in ns1 I felt like I was playing a first person shooter that had some choice in strategy.
Also while im having a cry, I'll say that I absolutely hate that ns2 has so many trade-off abilities - if I spend res on something especially significant amounts, I don't want to have a trade off, I want a better ability/weapon.
I'm not sure what experience you have, but from my experience the average marine using a shotgun is signficantly deadlier and can kill skulks much easier. It would become a straight up upgrade replacement over the LMG once it is unlocked unless the effectiveness of it is slightly reduced into becoming more of a side grade or only a slight upgrade. I guess this is a matter of opinion , as it is from what I have experienced.
The weapons HAVE to be balanced around the lowest common denominator on the Alien side, that being a skulk, as you just cannot make an alien nearly useless unless they have p.res to evolve to something. Right now it's balanced by the fact that the weapons quickly disappears after the user is dead so they can't keep spending p.res to buy more. From my experience , it is more often that the weapons disappear and are gone rather than them more often being saved.
That could be a possibility, although I personally like my idea of adding in new disposable comm reserached items for the marines to spend res on instead to complement their unlocks, as it adds more variety of play than just making the armor/weapon upgrades cost p.res.
nothing else need be said
Hmmmm Not a bad idea actually, marines should be able to build a hover bike where one driver and 1 rider in the back (possibly with machine gun mount) can drive around the map for hit and run attacks. That would make them much more fun and make increase teamwork. For balance purposes it should only go as fast a skulk.
Ya I really don't see how that could be fun either... all it does is restrict access to areas.... restricting things is never good.
I can't agree with your view. The player is the x-factor.
The Marines can sneak, move across the map quickly (very quickly if they drop their pistol and LMG), kill rts & structures quickly (shoot them), heal (weld), build, attack (quite effectively from range), destroy (in groups) from start to finish. It depends on the player(s).
Shotgun, Flamethrower are not a support weapons, in my opinion. They are quite effective in the right hands. In the wrong hands, they are a waste, just like higher lifeforms for the Aliens.
As a player, if you are using the stock load-out every respawn, then something might be wrong. It's like staying a skulk the entire game, when there are resources available to evolve. Marines who don't buy 5Res Welders, 10Res Jetpacks, or 15Res Mines aren't taking advantage of the available tools.
Also, the Dev's are adding new content, for both sides. It should be out soon.
Even though I don't agree, new content brainstorming sessions are cool.
The problem with welding in NS1 was that it was permanent. If they made welding doors only temporary with the aliens having an option to break them down somehow, would make it more fun and tactical.
I am also in favour of riot shields where you can only equip melee weapons/secondary pistols where the shield front is protected with the back exposed. Would make interesting tactical pushes and allow you to cover lerk and bile bombs attacks on your arcs/exos. Sort of a support tank if you will.
Marines should be given more mech/weapon choices/construction options to make it less mundane. Maybe allow normal marines to build defensive structures like a barricade or motion sensor detector? anything that does not require commander to put down would give more independent choice and dynamic gameplay.
The shotgun is by the most part a direct upgrade from the LMG as it is crucial to combat aliens in late game when they get carapace/lerks/fades and onos as they can 1-2 shot most lifeforms other than onos. The ultimate killing machine other then a duel exo is a jetpack marine with shotgun (although much more flexible then an exo as they can use phase gates and build/weld). But i digress, Marine is still quite mundane in playstyle compared to aliens, as they just shoot/build/weld when necessary in more or less the same way throughout the whole game. Would be happy if marines got more support options like the aliens have with the gorges/lerk umbra/skulk parasite/fade vortex/onos stomp. More support based weapons/mechs/private buildable structures just to change it up when you are bored.
I enjoy the gorge as they are not very strong in direct attack but are very valuable in support/defensive role for alien team with all their buildables and blinding spit/bile bomb (soon to be babblers and gorge tunnels). If marines could get a similar fun but unique options, they would be more popular in pub level imo.
Ignoring conventional shoot-aliens gameplay, a marine can:
Also be sneaky - crouching makes no noise. You can hide somewhere out of los and skulks will often run past you as they try to get to the frontlines. You could be on your way to ninja a PG, snipe upgrades, etc.
Also reach destinations quickly if he uses "racing lines". Sprint + pistol or knife is great.
Also kill RTs/structures or clear out infestation in good time. I like to kill the closest cyst first since it either helps kill the harvester or tie up the comm as he re-links cysts, diverting his attention to me.
This holds true no matter what type of weapon you have equipped. Aliens have diverse lifeforms while marines have a variety of weapons. There are many ways for marines to do their job.
It's true, you'll be using the LMG most of the time unless you're good at staying alive or recycling weapons. Aliens will also be skulks most of the time, using bite as their primary weapon, unless they're good at keeping their higher lifeform. Some higher tier weapons are for support similar to how lerks and gorgies act as support. Using a shotty is like being a shock trooper and exos are like onii, though. JPs give marines faster movement, higher survivability, easier access to certain areas, etc.
For marines, I think these upgrades offer a fine range of gameplay options. I guess that early game may feel somewhat stale if you're always following orders and doing things the conventional way, though. Perhaps UWE could implement different classes that spawn with different characteristics or a unique tool at their disposal. For example, there could be a normal marine, an engineer, and a scientist class. A marine could spawn with an ever-so-slightly better LMG or one that has a scope, an engineer could have better building/welding capabilities, and a scientist could have an EMP of some sort. These would give marines a way to specialize in a certain role of their liking and help avoid the repetitive look of IP-cloned marines. Marines can be of normal weight, engineers can be chubby, and scientists can be skinny. Voila! Diversity.