it's a horrible mess void of any real strategy, but aliens being dominant for the first 30 minutes is normal and expected
the game ends up being about a OP aliens breaking a turtle before marines become OP in the late-game
marine pres is fairly useless in setting up these turtles. they need upgrades, a lot of IPs, and the tech for guns (players already have PRES to spend on them because they don't buy anything all game). even sentry turrets are useful because there will be enough aliens that get hit when they keep suiciding into the same room over and over again.
the only reason the game functions at all is that aliens don't have the target prioritization, coordination and patience required to break heavy turtles, so marines do come back after saving enough TRES to buy upgrades
if you let people fade and onos earlier then it becomes harder to set up the turtle and a few marine players being able to buy more shotguns is going to mean absolutely nothing
will a pub marine team ever be able to push out in the early game against an equally low skilled pub alien team? absolutely not
but if they turtle then bad aliens won't be able to kill anything either
Calling my post a personal attack is just laughable, really? I mean there was a post that specifically called out comp players in this thread, stating that their intentions were bad and it was 'sad'. I make a response to that and its an attack? You really have strange logic if you think thats an attack.... And as for the 'stupid' remark I do not know of any other way to respond to someone comparing RFK to making the paddle bigger each point you score in pong... But I would rather this thread not get clogged up with BS about semantics.
As for the player going 15-0, I already said that games where the skill imbalance is not that large, RFK will not have a large impact.. which sort of eliminates those kinds of games. I'm not saying that those games don't happen, I know quite well that they do, just that those games are already decided with or without RFK...
And I'm glad that my tone has been trademarked so now I can sleep easy at night without worry of someone ripping off my hard work.
FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
edited August 2013
I just realized something interesting about this RFK debate. One of the main issues with it is that it FURTHER rewards better players.
How does this game currently reward anyone for anything?
Here is my little idea to handle the "fadeplosion":
In ns1 players have to go gorge and build harvesters. That was very essential and ends up in an good mix of lifefeorms.
How about an new structure where alien players can spend an ammount of pres.
You need harvesters to increase the pres and tres income. Nothing new so far.
The idea is to decrease the tres income, but players can push the income with the pres spend.
The result:
Early weak fades without upgrades if no alienplayer spend some pres.
A few upgraded fades cause the player who spend pres cant go fade @ the same time like the others.
Removing the "build"-ability from drifters (make them scouts again) would do the same
No it wouldn't, because then the gorges are building but not spending res.
More elegantly depara: Are you saying to slow tres income, increase pres income, and thus force pres to be spent on team activities early game?
Not the worst idea I've heard. But very simply close to having gorges drop chambers and rts again. Anything that forces significant spending I'm ok with though.
@mattji104
I know it not exactly the same but it would make the gorge needed for winning the game without making the kham somehow more useless.
Yes you're right (and sorry I didn't mean to sound rude that time ). But my point being removing build from drifters is not as significant a change as required pres expenditure for the teams sake at the start of the game. Think along the lines of the comm drops a "blueprint" and aliens need to go drop their res into it if the comm can't. Might be neat!
I am personally of the opinion that we should remove drifters, macs, and arc wheels entirely!
@mattji104
I know it not exactly the same but it would make the gorge needed for winning the game without making the kham somehow more useless.
Yes you're right (and sorry I didn't mean to sound rude that time ). But my point being removing build from drifters is not as significant a change as required pres expenditure for the teams sake at the start of the game. Think along the lines of the comm drops a "blueprint" and aliens need to go drop their res into it if the comm can't. Might be neat!
I am personally of the opinion that we should remove drifters, macs, and arc wheels entirely!
First the thing with pres for buildings: It would make tres and the khamm unneeded or noone would build buildings. Secondly i am against any kind of removing abilties from the comm ( whips, arcs, macs and drifters), as these units give the comm ways to have a impact at the game. Just imagine commanding a marine team unable to take down the last hive.
BTW what do you guys think about the LMG i quiet like it.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Please remove the ability for people to purchase exos at 1 cc. All this does is promote turtling when the marines realize they can't move out of their base to capture a second tech point. The game then becomes turtle long enough to get exos, farm as many kills as you can or kill a few lifeforms and maybe 1-100 games turn the game around and win. NS2 should NOT promote turtling as a valid tactic to prolong a already lost game. I would like to keep jetpacks at 1 cc because the skill level you see in pub play a jetpacker is easier to deal with when talking about average pub players facing off. At the same time jetpacks are plenty strong enough to turn the game around with as well. If the enemy has the skill to use a jet pack effectively they deserve to stay in the fight.
I understand it's not best time to nerf marines but I feel the enjoyment in pub play will be far greater without exos on 1 cc. Remember that feeling you got when you took the marines second base guaranteeing you no more jetpack or exos? Now that is replaced with "God I hope they dont fucking turtle with exos to farm kills".
While being able to buy 1 CC exos doesn't make the problem better, its certainly not the primary cause of the problem. Even when exos took 2 CC's, you still saw long drawn out last stands as marines attempted to hold on with dual exos. The real solution is to give aliens tier 3 abilities that actually help them end the game. The current single exo is much less of an unstoppable killing machine then it was before, and since you still need 2 CCs for duals the problem is not that unbearably bad... However turtles will always be a problem even without exos and jetpacks, simply because if you have the entirety of one team in a single place, it will always take some reasonable coordination from the other team to overwhelm them, which is usually somewhat lacking in pub games.
If the whole marine team can't keep one fade at bay then the game is already lost, with or without RFk. It doesn't really change anything for that scenario.
No, that's not true at all Imo
For starters, its compounding.. Not from when you get a fade and the game is decided, but from the beginning of the game when that player is a skulk. This means that the player is further individually rewarded and influencing the round in more impacting ways than just "oh the game is already lost, good thing he's ending it with his second fade"
He is already individually rewarded from all contributing actions he provides to the team! RFK simply compounds this reward at all stages of a round. Consistently rewarding the best killers to a further degree.
So even if there's a way to perfectly guarantee equally skilled teams before implementing this, I still see it exacerbating the skill gap issue that has been raised so frequently. (even within reach respective "tier")
In short : A well voiced issue with player retention and game enjoyment in public games (skill gap) has a good potential for being exacerbated due to a feature that doesn't actually solve anything on it's own and historically is controversial.
Here is my little idea to handle the "fadeplosion":
In ns1 players have to go gorge and build harvesters. That was very essential and ends up in an good mix of lifefeorms.
How about an new structure where alien players can spend an ammount of pres.
You need harvesters to increase the pres and tres income. Nothing new so far.
The idea is to decrease the tres income, but players can push the income with the pres spend.
The result:
Early weak fades without upgrades if no alienplayer spend some pres.
A few upgraded fades cause the player who spend pres cant go fade @ the same time like the others.
Removing the "build"-ability from drifters (make them scouts again) would do the same
I dont understand how this split the res for each player. My idea is todo that so you dont have 6 people going fade @ the same time.
With removing the build ability you still have the fadeplosion, there is only delay cause you only "lose" 1 player as gorge building the stuff. But you have this gorge @ currentg games anyway, so nothing solved.
UWE removed the "no pres income while dead". This splits the pres situation a bit and you had a little delay between every1 going fade.
The only solution against the mass fading is to have an mechanism where player have to spend there pres on something for the team. (like gorges building harvesters in ns1)
If they dont do this, the team has an disadvanatage.
You can choose between mass weak fades or few strong fades.
While being able to buy 1 CC exos doesn't make the problem better, its certainly not the primary cause of the problem. Even when exos took 2 CC's, you still saw long drawn out last stands as marines attempted to hold on with dual exos. The real solution is to give aliens tier 3 abilities that actually help them end the game. The current single exo is much less of an unstoppable killing machine then it was before, and since you still need 2 CCs for duals the problem is not that unbearably bad... However turtles will always be a problem even without exos and jetpacks, simply because if you have the entirety of one team in a single place, it will always take some reasonable coordination from the other team to overwhelm them, which is usually somewhat lacking in pub games.
Completely agree on solid tier 3 abilities but turtles are more common now with exos. The fact is games are far easier to end w/o them on the field and putting them on 2cc would reduce the frequency you see them used to turtle. I would rather the problem get reduced now then wait for god knows how long to actually get features in the game to end marine turtles.
While being able to buy 1 CC exos doesn't make the problem better, its certainly not the primary cause of the problem. Even when exos took 2 CC's, you still saw long drawn out last stands as marines attempted to hold on with dual exos. The real solution is to give aliens tier 3 abilities that actually help them end the game. The current single exo is much less of an unstoppable killing machine then it was before, and since you still need 2 CCs for duals the problem is not that unbearably bad... However turtles will always be a problem even without exos and jetpacks, simply because if you have the entirety of one team in a single place, it will always take some reasonable coordination from the other team to overwhelm them, which is usually somewhat lacking in pub games.
Completely agree on solid tier 3 abilities but turtles are more common now with exos. The fact is games are far easier to end w/o them on the field and putting them on 2cc would reduce the frequency you see them used to turtle. I would rather the problem get reduced now then wait for god knows how long to actually get features in the game to end marine turtles.
I agree with this band-aid fix.
I like having exos on 1-CC, but they can't be used for turtling You gotta yolo with those things for one last push if that's what it's down to
I feel that T3 spores are in a great place ( still prefer them as T2)
Stomp is OK, but it could maybe shake the Exo's gun and affect aim for a second or two
Xeno...well its still bad
Vortex.....If vortex damaged armor, and then reduced damage by 50% (instead of 100%) for the duration (bonus damage to structures) it could be very usefull for breaking turtles since it could be a ranged way to eat away at buildings and Exos, and, combined with umbra, would make for very good bunker busting potential.
****This would fill a gap left by acid rocket, imo
I really don't like the idea of making the Gorge into the Alien Comms build slave, it sounds rather boring for both players if you want my honest opinion. Why punish 2 players now with a dull commander position rather than let them get more creative? Let’s make the solution more fun AND reduce the probability of life form explosion.
What if the alien comm and the gorge were BOTH reworked a bit.
These following ideas basically make the gorge more of a frontline / explorer builder (and give him back the fun parts of his former glory); and give the alien comm more of a combat support role similar in usefulness to the marine comm. And bonus is whatever the alien comm chooses as his Hive path, he directly effects his gameplay.
Gorge:
Grant the ability to build a few more structures but keep everything else the same:
-Gorge can now build Resource towers and defensive structures (shade, crag, shift). Limit the amount any 1 gorge can built to 2 defensive structures total (i.e. 1 crag and 1 shift, or 1 crag and 1 shade etc). Gorgie can build as many RTs as he wants.
-Add gorge tunnel type cyst, i.e. it will provide infestation as long as he has one gorge tunnel rooted on infestation (call it an infestation tunnel?) Make it look bigger and of a different color than the standard cyst so marines know what to kill 1st. Let him build 1 or 2 max.
-buff up the hydras and reduce the amount he can place to 1 or 2. Also increase cost a bit.
-let him build a few more clogs, or make them a bit bigger
Alien Comm:
Can still build RTs, but now does not build defensive structures (that has been moved to the gorge)
Consequently, reduce the amount of Tres he gains per res tower (gorge is taking some of his burden away so you need to reduce the Tres curve slightly).
To make him a vital part of the team, give him some useful support abilities for crying out loud! Possibly link them to drifters, but I’m not sure I like having to have drifters present in order to help out your team. The existing clouds the drifter has are nice, but I dunno if I like them linked to the drifters necessarily (though it does give marines a good thing to shoot at).
Possibly add another line of abilities the commander can use independent of the drifter, also unlocked by the tech structures.
Additional support ability ideas :
Parasite swarm – similar to radar scan, but it basically tags everything that can be parasited in a radius with a parasite. – unlocked by veil
Hardened Shell – direct target cast - Affected unit can only take a maximum of 50? damage per second for the next 3 seconds (shotty/ greande launcher counter) – unlocked by shell
Focus – direct target cast – affected unit’s next landed attack does double damage. – unlocked by spur.
Venom Cloud – All lifeforms affected gain a poison bite type effect on their next attack. – unlocked by whip?
Noobs don't know what to do when they first join a game, so they follow whoever is closest to them. This results in massive herds of noobs moving as a unit throughout the map. When noobs cannot locate someone else to follow, they get wander and get lost. A commander or another player yelling "GET TO SHIPPING" means nothing to a noob.
I'd like to see a "NOOB TEST" version added to the balance test that takes into consideration these pub scenarios that biz so accurately portrayed. We need to be better able to describe the reason things are happening as opposed to how or why, or we need to simplify the strategy so that's it's more innately understandable within the context of gameplay.
UWE tried a squad implementation for marines back in the day that was ultimately trashed, but I think they understood the importance of communicating teamwork in the game. Something needs to be done with this regard, or pubs will remain a mess of noobs following people around, getting lost, or base turtling due to being completely overwhelmed with a terribly complicated RTS masquerading as a FPS.
There's no elitism in what I said. I don't play in gathers, I'm not in a clam, all of my logged hours in NS2 are from pubs, so my previous post is simply an observation I've made. If you think I'm wrong, join a green server on any night of the week and observe the noob tendencies for yourself.
At its core, I think that NS2 is a strategy game -- you have a steady evolution of units acquired from a resource pool decided by a "commander" that grows throughout the game until one side is conquered -- which is why I said RTS masquerading as a FPS. You can make the argument either way, though. Regardless, the game is a mess, the developers are clueless, and we're left with a discombobulated set of ideas decided upon by a group of playtester fanboys.
If UWE isn't doing this already, they should halt all development for a week and be forced to play their own game in gathers & pubs under cover. From these observations, they can distill NS2 into its core tenets and then adjust gameplay mechanisms accordingly to increase fluidity, depth, and enjoyment. Otherwise we're going to be left tinkering with Biomass until the end times trying to make something complicated even more complicated, scaring away all potential new players so that even when it's on Steam sale for a dollar people will shy away.
I'd like to see a "NOOB TEST" version added to the balance test that takes into consideration these pub scenarios that biz so accurately portrayed. We need to be better able to describe the reason things are happening as opposed to how or why, or we need to simplify the strategy so that's it's more innately understandable within the context of gameplay.
OR!
Instead of removing complexity, depth and skill of the game they create an integrated tutorial system that shows how the game works. There is enough hand holding game mechanics in the game already, to add more is stupid.
Calling my post a personal attack is just laughable, really? I mean there was a post that specifically called out comp players in this thread, stating that their intentions were bad and it was 'sad'. I make a response to that and its an attack? You really have strange logic if you think thats an attack.... And as for the 'stupid' remark I do not know of any other way to respond to someone comparing RFK to making the paddle bigger each point you score in pong... But I would rather this thread not get clogged up with BS about semantics.
As for the player going 15-0, I already said that games where the skill imbalance is not that large, RFK will not have a large impact.. which sort of eliminates those kinds of games. I'm not saying that those games don't happen, I know quite well that they do, just that those games are already decided with or without RFK...
And I'm glad that my tone has been trademarked so now I can sleep easy at night without worry of someone ripping off my hard work.
Thx for your insults dragon. Your emotional reaction shows me that I may be right with my _opinion_. You calling my opinion "stupid" and "bullshit" while I explicitly stated: "it looks to me that". You ignore all the other points I have listed beside this little side note. AND on top of all that, you fail to grasp that the pong example wasn't from me. Grissi made it up and I only corrected it.
Even beside that... When you can't understand how, rewarding the player that made a point with better chances to make another point is the same as RFK, I don't need to wonder about your way to argue.
fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
The biggest non-systemic problems with ns2 balance in competitive 6v6 right now:
- Fade balls (4 fades pop at the same time and just fly around the map killing everything).
- Fades are too cheap.
- Umbra OP.
- Babblers OP.
- Gorges are too cheap.
Fade balls are definitely still an issue, I wouldn't be completely against alien lifeforms not getting res while dead. Definitely not the fix for fade balls, but at least this way they won't all be up at once and it'll perhaps even give marines a minute or two extra to gain some extra tech/ground to help deal with the inevitable.
Umbra is very strong, but it is even worse when babblers are on fades/skulks and they are being umbra'd as well. I feel that babblers should only be able to stick onto gorges and no other lifeform. Umbra should cost a bit more energy as well. I think it should take 1/3 of the lerks energy.
Perhaps disable "Res While Dead" if that player didn't manage to kill an enemy in that life?
So it's basically a Pres delay in the disguise of RFK, except it's not because it gives players a chance to offset the Pres gain of bad players on the enemy team without actually being rewarded overly by doing good.
So what would RFK do for competetive 6v6: In case the alien team wants to get a fade out ASAP, they can now try to give all their kills to one person by letting him get the last bite. Obviously this is very risky and not easy to pull off but the reward would be one very early fade who can then decide the game instead of this ball.
-> More viable strategies, more depth without additional complexity.
So what would RFK do for competetive 6v6: In case the alien team wants to get a fade out ASAP, they can now try to give all their kills to one person by letting him get the last bite. Obviously this is very risky and not easy to pull off but the reward would be one very early fade who can then decide the game instead of this ball.
-> More viable strategies, more depth without additional complexity.
It would make combacks more possible, if the losing team manages to play better with the fps part in the later stages in the game they have the chance to get enough pres to get access to extra lifeforms and/or weapons.
Its bit overshadowed on the alien side currently because of tresdrops. Tres drops are a big issue in the game and will hopefully be removed in close future.
Now for aliens to have any chance of winning they have to have fades. Lets say the opponent manages to pick out all the fade pretty early in the game giving them a huge advantage. For the aliens it will be a near impossible uphill battle but they manage to play the fps game really well and win engagements. However because the aliens only have 3 rts up they have to wait around 13-14 min to get new set of fades up. So even if they manage to do amazingly defending from marine pushes with shotguns they have no way of reducing that time. Holding out for such a length of time is simply not realistically possible if both teams are really strong.
This is bit of a extreme scenario, most of the time the pres for kill would have a lot of suddle changes of balance in the fight giving the team that is behind bigger chance to get back into the game with good play. It also punishes suicide runs when players simply send base lifeforms/equipment into suicide missions.
Another possible way might be to increase the pres resource flow but that would also make fade accessable sooner in the game. That would mean the lifeforms would have to be weaker earlier on.
Maybe you could tie HP scaling to the amount of upgrades you've evolved to? So when you pay that extra pres for an upgrade, you get extra HP as well. That way you can scale higher lifeforms a bit better than they do now. You'd need to tweak it a bit, but if you make a 40pres fade significantly weaker than a 55 pres one in terms of HP, it might break up the fadeplosion a bit as some people might not want to risk losing an early fade, or at least make the fade ball easier to deal with as long as aliens are still on one hive (and thus just one upgrade).
Comments
it's a horrible mess void of any real strategy, but aliens being dominant for the first 30 minutes is normal and expected
the game ends up being about a OP aliens breaking a turtle before marines become OP in the late-game
marine pres is fairly useless in setting up these turtles. they need upgrades, a lot of IPs, and the tech for guns (players already have PRES to spend on them because they don't buy anything all game). even sentry turrets are useful because there will be enough aliens that get hit when they keep suiciding into the same room over and over again.
the only reason the game functions at all is that aliens don't have the target prioritization, coordination and patience required to break heavy turtles, so marines do come back after saving enough TRES to buy upgrades
if you let people fade and onos earlier then it becomes harder to set up the turtle and a few marine players being able to buy more shotguns is going to mean absolutely nothing
will a pub marine team ever be able to push out in the early game against an equally low skilled pub alien team? absolutely not
but if they turtle then bad aliens won't be able to kill anything either
As for the player going 15-0, I already said that games where the skill imbalance is not that large, RFK will not have a large impact.. which sort of eliminates those kinds of games. I'm not saying that those games don't happen, I know quite well that they do, just that those games are already decided with or without RFK...
And I'm glad that my tone has been trademarked so now I can sleep easy at night without worry of someone ripping off my hard work.
How does this game currently reward anyone for anything?
No it wouldn't, because then the gorges are building but not spending res.
More elegantly depara: Are you saying to slow tres income, increase pres income, and thus force pres to be spent on team activities early game?
Not the worst idea I've heard. But very simply close to having gorges drop chambers and rts again. Anything that forces significant spending I'm ok with though.
I know it not exactly the same but it would make the gorge needed for winning the game without making the kham somehow more useless.
Yes you're right (and sorry I didn't mean to sound rude that time
I am personally of the opinion that we should remove drifters, macs, and arc wheels entirely!
First the thing with pres for buildings: It would make tres and the khamm unneeded or noone would build buildings. Secondly i am against any kind of removing abilties from the comm ( whips, arcs, macs and drifters), as these units give the comm ways to have a impact at the game. Just imagine commanding a marine team unable to take down the last hive.
BTW what do you guys think about the LMG i quiet like it.
I understand it's not best time to nerf marines but I feel the enjoyment in pub play will be far greater without exos on 1 cc. Remember that feeling you got when you took the marines second base guaranteeing you no more jetpack or exos? Now that is replaced with "God I hope they dont fucking turtle with exos to farm kills".
For starters, its compounding.. Not from when you get a fade and the game is decided, but from the beginning of the game when that player is a skulk. This means that the player is further individually rewarded and influencing the round in more impacting ways than just "oh the game is already lost, good thing he's ending it with his second fade"
He is already individually rewarded from all contributing actions he provides to the team! RFK simply compounds this reward at all stages of a round. Consistently rewarding the best killers to a further degree.
So even if there's a way to perfectly guarantee equally skilled teams before implementing this, I still see it exacerbating the skill gap issue that has been raised so frequently. (even within reach respective "tier")
In short : A well voiced issue with player retention and game enjoyment in public games (skill gap) has a good potential for being exacerbated due to a feature that doesn't actually solve anything on it's own and historically is controversial.
I dont understand how this split the res for each player. My idea is todo that so you dont have 6 people going fade @ the same time.
With removing the build ability you still have the fadeplosion, there is only delay cause you only "lose" 1 player as gorge building the stuff. But you have this gorge @ currentg games anyway, so nothing solved.
UWE removed the "no pres income while dead". This splits the pres situation a bit and you had a little delay between every1 going fade.
The only solution against the mass fading is to have an mechanism where player have to spend there pres on something for the team. (like gorges building harvesters in ns1)
If they dont do this, the team has an disadvanatage.
You can choose between mass weak fades or few strong fades.
Completely agree on solid tier 3 abilities but turtles are more common now with exos. The fact is games are far easier to end w/o them on the field and putting them on 2cc would reduce the frequency you see them used to turtle. I would rather the problem get reduced now then wait for god knows how long to actually get features in the game to end marine turtles.
I agree with this band-aid fix.
I like having exos on 1-CC, but they can't be used for turtling
Stomp is OK, but it could maybe shake the Exo's gun and affect aim for a second or two
Xeno...well its still bad
Vortex.....If vortex damaged armor, and then reduced damage by 50% (instead of 100%) for the duration (bonus damage to structures) it could be very usefull for breaking turtles since it could be a ranged way to eat away at buildings and Exos, and, combined with umbra, would make for very good bunker busting potential.
****This would fill a gap left by acid rocket, imo
What if the alien comm and the gorge were BOTH reworked a bit.
These following ideas basically make the gorge more of a frontline / explorer builder (and give him back the fun parts of his former glory); and give the alien comm more of a combat support role similar in usefulness to the marine comm. And bonus is whatever the alien comm chooses as his Hive path, he directly effects his gameplay.
Gorge:
Grant the ability to build a few more structures but keep everything else the same:
-Gorge can now build Resource towers and defensive structures (shade, crag, shift). Limit the amount any 1 gorge can built to 2 defensive structures total (i.e. 1 crag and 1 shift, or 1 crag and 1 shade etc). Gorgie can build as many RTs as he wants.
-Add gorge tunnel type cyst, i.e. it will provide infestation as long as he has one gorge tunnel rooted on infestation (call it an infestation tunnel?) Make it look bigger and of a different color than the standard cyst so marines know what to kill 1st. Let him build 1 or 2 max.
-buff up the hydras and reduce the amount he can place to 1 or 2. Also increase cost a bit.
-let him build a few more clogs, or make them a bit bigger
Alien Comm:
Can still build RTs, but now does not build defensive structures (that has been moved to the gorge)
Consequently, reduce the amount of Tres he gains per res tower (gorge is taking some of his burden away so you need to reduce the Tres curve slightly).
To make him a vital part of the team, give him some useful support abilities for crying out loud! Possibly link them to drifters, but I’m not sure I like having to have drifters present in order to help out your team. The existing clouds the drifter has are nice, but I dunno if I like them linked to the drifters necessarily (though it does give marines a good thing to shoot at).
Possibly add another line of abilities the commander can use independent of the drifter, also unlocked by the tech structures.
Additional support ability ideas :
Parasite swarm – similar to radar scan, but it basically tags everything that can be parasited in a radius with a parasite. – unlocked by veil
Hardened Shell – direct target cast - Affected unit can only take a maximum of 50? damage per second for the next 3 seconds (shotty/ greande launcher counter) – unlocked by shell
Focus – direct target cast – affected unit’s next landed attack does double damage. – unlocked by spur.
Venom Cloud – All lifeforms affected gain a poison bite type effect on their next attack. – unlocked by whip?
QFT
Noobs don't know what to do when they first join a game, so they follow whoever is closest to them. This results in massive herds of noobs moving as a unit throughout the map. When noobs cannot locate someone else to follow, they get wander and get lost. A commander or another player yelling "GET TO SHIPPING" means nothing to a noob.
I'd like to see a "NOOB TEST" version added to the balance test that takes into consideration these pub scenarios that biz so accurately portrayed. We need to be better able to describe the reason things are happening as opposed to how or why, or we need to simplify the strategy so that's it's more innately understandable within the context of gameplay.
UWE tried a squad implementation for marines back in the day that was ultimately trashed, but I think they understood the importance of communicating teamwork in the game. Something needs to be done with this regard, or pubs will remain a mess of noobs following people around, getting lost, or base turtling due to being completely overwhelmed with a terribly complicated RTS masquerading as a FPS.
There's no elitism in what I said. I don't play in gathers, I'm not in a clam, all of my logged hours in NS2 are from pubs, so my previous post is simply an observation I've made. If you think I'm wrong, join a green server on any night of the week and observe the noob tendencies for yourself.
At its core, I think that NS2 is a strategy game -- you have a steady evolution of units acquired from a resource pool decided by a "commander" that grows throughout the game until one side is conquered -- which is why I said RTS masquerading as a FPS. You can make the argument either way, though. Regardless, the game is a mess, the developers are clueless, and we're left with a discombobulated set of ideas decided upon by a group of playtester fanboys.
If UWE isn't doing this already, they should halt all development for a week and be forced to play their own game in gathers & pubs under cover. From these observations, they can distill NS2 into its core tenets and then adjust gameplay mechanisms accordingly to increase fluidity, depth, and enjoyment. Otherwise we're going to be left tinkering with Biomass until the end times trying to make something complicated even more complicated, scaring away all potential new players so that even when it's on Steam sale for a dollar people will shy away.
OR!
Instead of removing complexity, depth and skill of the game they create an integrated tutorial system that shows how the game works. There is enough hand holding game mechanics in the game already, to add more is stupid.
Thx for your insults dragon. Your emotional reaction shows me that I may be right with my _opinion_. You calling my opinion "stupid" and "bullshit" while I explicitly stated: "it looks to me that". You ignore all the other points I have listed beside this little side note. AND on top of all that, you fail to grasp that the pong example wasn't from me. Grissi made it up and I only corrected it.
Even beside that... When you can't understand how, rewarding the player that made a point with better chances to make another point is the same as RFK, I don't need to wonder about your way to argue.
It was already removed. If you want to test something similair try my RFP mod.
- Fade balls (4 fades pop at the same time and just fly around the map killing everything).
- Fades are too cheap.
- Umbra OP.
- Babblers OP.
- Gorges are too cheap.
Fade balls are definitely still an issue, I wouldn't be completely against alien lifeforms not getting res while dead. Definitely not the fix for fade balls, but at least this way they won't all be up at once and it'll perhaps even give marines a minute or two extra to gain some extra tech/ground to help deal with the inevitable.
Umbra is very strong, but it is even worse when babblers are on fades/skulks and they are being umbra'd as well. I feel that babblers should only be able to stick onto gorges and no other lifeform. Umbra should cost a bit more energy as well. I think it should take 1/3 of the lerks energy.
And yes gorges are too cheap.
So it's basically a Pres delay in the disguise of RFK, except it's not because it gives players a chance to offset the Pres gain of bad players on the enemy team without actually being rewarded overly by doing good.
-> More viable strategies, more depth without additional complexity.
It would make combacks more possible, if the losing team manages to play better with the fps part in the later stages in the game they have the chance to get enough pres to get access to extra lifeforms and/or weapons.
Its bit overshadowed on the alien side currently because of tresdrops. Tres drops are a big issue in the game and will hopefully be removed in close future.
Now for aliens to have any chance of winning they have to have fades. Lets say the opponent manages to pick out all the fade pretty early in the game giving them a huge advantage. For the aliens it will be a near impossible uphill battle but they manage to play the fps game really well and win engagements. However because the aliens only have 3 rts up they have to wait around 13-14 min to get new set of fades up. So even if they manage to do amazingly defending from marine pushes with shotguns they have no way of reducing that time. Holding out for such a length of time is simply not realistically possible if both teams are really strong.
This is bit of a extreme scenario, most of the time the pres for kill would have a lot of suddle changes of balance in the fight giving the team that is behind bigger chance to get back into the game with good play. It also punishes suicide runs when players simply send base lifeforms/equipment into suicide missions.
Another possible way might be to increase the pres resource flow but that would also make fade accessable sooner in the game. That would mean the lifeforms would have to be weaker earlier on.