another reason i believe the armory/welding thing would NOT encourage teamwork, nor discourage selfish/anti-team gameplay.
you could avoid 'inconvenience' by stacking onto a team with steam friends. ignore the rest of your team and just run around welding your friend. ever played TF2 where a player on your team has a pocket medic? i can tell you now that it's NOT fun or indicative of 'team play' when he ignores everyone else and just focuses on his friend.
again i'm not looking at my teammates with contempt, i'm just being pragmatic - i have over 2500 hours on TF2 and this happens ALL THE TIME (they ignore everyone on their team except their steam friend).
the ONLY thing it solves is reducing the power of the proxy/forward armory staging area. for which there are several superior options-the best being either advanced armory or prevent healing while in combat.
both changes i would support; nerf powerful forward armory and make spores etc more useful - two birds with one stone. instead of the welder idea which is two birds with one stone, then the stone goes through your window and 50 inch plasma.
advanced armoury heals armour and normal one doesnt that should balance things a bit. an advanced armoury takes a bit more res and time to upgrade. Welders would be a cheaper option. PG back to an advance from a forward position would be fine, that still gives marines the disadvantage to run back to base whilst a forward one can be dismantled by skulks. As of now, dropping a forward armoury can spell a death sentence instantly. Since upgrading to an advance armoury takes time (rather than getting 4 marines quick building to heal all 4 marines from deaths door to fully kitted in 5 seconds). Plus it did simply work on NS1.
I like the idea of armouries not healing armour - makes xeno a decent skill to use now. Remember that aliens dont get pres when waiting to spawn so a xeno is a penalty to the skulk.
Maybe have spores eat armour (or umbra). Since I love being a lerk this is an OP idea really.
puzlThe Old FirmJoin Date: 2003-02-26Member: 14029Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
I don't understand what you are saying tarquinbb... that welding does not encourage teamwork because it encourages teamwork between friends? If I understand you correctly, you are claiming that the medic healing in TF2 is a bad thing because RL friends can use it exclusively on each other, and that the only way to heal in TF2 should be at the Dispenser?
Fade is my favorite alien to play and I think it is a lot of fun. Unlike most fades, I prefer shadow step 9/10 times to blink so I was not happy with that change.
Every competent fade uses shadowstep 90% of the time, which is the reason for the swap. It's essentially a huge nerf for 1 hive fades.
Also, I don't get why so many people think armouries not healing armour will make a negative impact on gameplay, because it absolutely won't. The only thing it does is encourage teamplay. Think about it for a second. When do you really use an armoury to heal yourself? When you're turtling in base or pushing somewhere with a forward armoury. In both cases, you will very likely have other marines around. Keeping everyone welded won't be an issue even if only 2 marines in the team have a welder at any given point. For every other scenario, like getting to places, ramboing RTs or all-in hive rushes, you wouldn't have an armoury available anyway, so be thankful that due to the change, a couple of marines will now always take welders along everywhere.
In addition to people learning they have to stick together to be efficient, everyone not running back to the armoury all the time allows and encourages you to push forward quicker as well. Players will naturally and intuitively learn to take turns welding, shooting and reloading. This is not "fake teamwork", it's something that should happen naturally, and this way everyone will be forced to adapt to a behaviour beneficial for everyone. It's just like someone else said, a mechanic that motivates players to work together and makes it clear this is a team game will eventually lead to actual teamwork. Intuitive learning is something severely lacking in this game, and this is a good enough start.
On a sidenote, saying "I don't trust my team, they suck anyway" is a silly argument as well as destructive thinking. Even if that's true, it's up to you to teach them. If you want to play singleplayer or be in an environment where everyone is a high level player, you should probably look elsewhere than the average pub server.
If people really want to go this welder route, then why not make the welder a 'stock' item marines spawn with and put it in slot 4. If someone buys mines they drop the welder. Then let the marines sort it out on their own.
There's no reason to make welders free or even just cheaper. I nearly always carry a welder around as it stands, and can afford everything else I need throughout the game. If anything, it will stop 80% of the marine team from saving for exos and will introduce the feeling of having "roles" for marines: some people will always have a welder throughout a game, some will save for exo, someone will be the lonely RT rambo, and so on. This is also something that should happen naturally but often doesn't. With the welder change, coordination and communication needs to happen or you will likely lose the game. If you're not a selfish boob, you will see this as a good thing.
Every competent fade uses shadowstep 90% of the time, which is the reason for the swap. It's essentially a huge nerf for 1 hive fades.
It's a big change but I wouldn't call it a nerf, obviously things will be altered before it reaches the public build.
Previously they both filled a role too similar. In a larger hallway or open space? I'm going to shadowstep + double jump down that. In a tigher space I went to get through/escape? I'm going to blink. They're both used for getting places.
With the changes in this build they feel very different, blink is for getting places and shadowstep acts like a great dodging tool. I like that, it makes more sense to have both now.
With the changes in this build they feel very different, blink is for getting places and shadowstep acts like a great dodging tool. I like that, it makes more sense to have both now.
Ah, that's pretty cool. I need to play this mod. :S
For balance, both teams need to require some sort of personal investment to heal each other to full in combat. For Aliens now, it's Gorges. For Marines it should be Welders, but instead right now it is Armories. I hope this explains why the changes are good at not bad. It only takes a few seconds to weld your buddy to full.
That's not really a fair comparison. As it stands the aliens can go crag and drop crags for remote healing. However, most people don't go gorge and then hang around healing people the rest of the game. (endgame is different of course.) Remember, an alien can still heal armor at a hive, but marine can no longer heal armor at a base(armory). Can you imagine if armor healing was removed from the hive and aliens NEEDED gorges to restore their armor? It would totally change the game.
While I don't have a problem with the armor/welding thing in principle, if this is going to be the case then welders should be free. Why? Keeping the cost at 5 p-res creates an imbalanced resource sink. Marines will be constantly dropping 5 pres on welders for sake of healing while aliens won't have a similar personal resource sink. This means marines are at an inherent disadvantage for p-res.
Free welders (that would still need to be picked up at an armory) would satisfy the 'no armor from armory' change, but not put an expensive and unnecessary resource sink on marines.
You are not comparing the mechanics in a parallel situation. Do you see Alien teams using Crags in the same way that Marines use Armories? They simply do not unless they have excess resources, you see them dropping Crags to heal up hives and at very specific locations for forward bases. Crags do not get spammed around the map often and if they do, the Alien team has a lot of extra resources to spend.
How is 5 pres for a Welder an unnecessary sink when Gorges are 10 res not including babblers/hydras/tunnels? You are just not considering the parallel. The changes fix Armories so that they act more like Crags instead of Gorges. Armories will be more likely used as base defense and offensive 'position-holders', rather than a cheap full healing post for each room on the map.
Should Gorges be free? Why would Welders be free?
In all honestly, I think the majority of the people complaining are just afraid to lose their first 20 pres in the first 5 minutes due to lack of resource management. At least this is something for Marines to spend their early res on without the commander having to research anything. Anyone else get tired of having 50+ pres and no mines/shotguns/welders? (provided a bad comm, this still happens)
EDIT: 'However, most people don't go gorge and then hang around healing people the rest of the game.' - This is simply untrue. A good gorge will set up defenses and (while playing smart) help their skulks push out by providing in-combat heals so they can continue moving up as they win fights. I do this all the time.
I really like the new fade. Feels like ns1 fade. The drifting effect affects fade aswell but with the right timing of blinks he can move around quite nicely.
I don't much like the current iteration of the fade movement. Blink didn't have any momentum and as soon as I stopped I fell out of the sky like a rock.
It works like the ns1 fade. Blink and bunnyhop.
I get that is what it is trying to model, just if you blink upwards at all and then just hold forward while you wait to go back to the floor you have no forward momentum at all and kind of brick to the ground. It doesn't feel quite right. [at least in the iteration I tried]
I don't understand what you are saying tarquinbb... that welding does not encourage teamwork because it encourages teamwork between friends? If I understand you correctly, you are claiming that the medic healing in TF2 is a bad thing because RL friends can use it exclusively on each other, and that the only way to heal in TF2 should be at the Dispenser?
you misunderstand.
medpacks are extremely useful in TF2, to simplify the analogy the armory change would be like having TF2 medpacks only heal to a maximum of 35% hp. why would they ever make such an arbitrary change? to promote team play? "now you need even more medics!! amazing new team play mechanic!!"
it's just frustrating, you have to rely more on roulette teammates, and the 'rambo' players will just get a rambo weld partner and still have exactly the same proficiency.
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
edited March 2013
From what I understand of the biomass thing, is that it makes 2nd tier abilities available on one hive.
Don't make leap available on hive 1, it will always be the first thing to be researched. It was tried before, don't want 25 second leap in the game again :P
Tier 2 is very powerful and should require map control(ie. a second hive).
I don't understand what you are saying tarquinbb... that welding does not encourage teamwork because it encourages teamwork between friends? If I understand you correctly, you are claiming that the medic healing in TF2 is a bad thing because RL friends can use it exclusively on each other, and that the only way to heal in TF2 should be at the Dispenser?
you misunderstand.
medpacks are extremely useful in TF2, to simplify the analogy the armory change would be like having TF2 medpacks only heal to a maximum of 35% hp. why would they ever make such an arbitrary change? to promote team play? "now you need even more medics!! amazing new team play mechanic!!"
it's just frustrating, you have to rely more on roulette teammates, and the 'rambo' players will just get a rambo weld partner and still have exactly the same proficiency.
What you describe just didn't happen in NS1. I can see how it would in TF2 (after all, the medic can make himself and his heavy Steam mate invulnerable for a time with ubercharge), although that medic is being stupid not getting his charge sooner by healing all the other people on his team around him...
My gut feeling, based on the experience from NS1 and the very large difference between medics in TF2 and marines with welders in NS2, is that it's a non-issue. However, it needs to be tested in practice to work out whether the theoretical problems you describe are actually going to occur in NS2. That's why it's great to be able to test them in this mod, so thanks for putting this out there, @Sewlek, and thanks for the server hosting, @invTemptest and @kalakuja (the EU server still up? I can't play until tomorrow night )
From what I understand of the biomass thing, is that it makes 2nd tier abilities available on one hive.
Don't make leap available on hive 1, it will always be the first thing to be researched. It was tried before, don't want 25 second leap in the game again :P
the distribution of the abilities is far away from final. thats just the very first order i came up with, without spending too much time thinking about it (just to get it working for testing)
Glad the armory discussion is being taken to a different thread, it was kind of overshadowing the huge amount of other amazing but possibly contentious changes
I really hope you consider the biomass 'choice' idea, from page 3, I don't think any developer predetermined 'tech tree' is going to suffice, no matter how hard you try. It's just way better to allow khammanders to adjust the ability upgrade order on the fly, as different game situations arise. Within a predefined framework of what upgrades become available when of course. Sometimes you'll JUST need bilebomb over leap, so it becomes frustrating quick when you're stuck having to go through other upgrades first. And there's definitely a case to be made for making stronger abilities more expensive early on and lower tier abilities cheaper as the game progresses.
I.e 2 Bio bilebomb would be more expensive than 3 Bio bilebomb, 3 Bio BB is still more expensive than 4 Bio BB, etc that way there's some serious trade-offs to be made.
1 bio (always tunnels)
2 bio (select from: leap, gas, bile)
3 bio (select from: leap, gas, bile, blink)
4 bio (select from: leap, gas, bile, blink, spors)
5 bio (select from: leap, gas, bile, blink, spors, xeno)
6 bio (select from: leap, gas, bile, blink, spors, xeno, stomp)
7 bio (select from: leap, gas, bile, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
8 bio (select from: leap, gas, bile, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
9 bio (select from: leap, gas, bile, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
edited March 2013
I have another suggestion, I wrote this in the ENSL forums and a long time ago on these forums(cant find that post), to adress the lifeform/weapon tech explosions. If you feel like this would be a good addition to your mod, please make it! Most of your balance mod looks great. If you have any questions about how my suggestion works, you can just ask me on steam.
Here is the topic on ensl: http://www.ensl.org/topics/678
Note: the server hosting ENSL is currently down due to getting a harddrive change, the old one was dying. But it should be up within a few hours.
From what I understand of the biomass thing, is that it makes 2nd tier abilities available on one hive.
Don't make leap available on hive 1, it will always be the first thing to be researched. It was tried before, don't want 25 second leap in the game again :P
Tier 2 is very powerful and should require map control(ie. a second hive).
Currently it costs 70 res to get leap on one hive and 2 biomass researches (which are quite long). 25 second leap is not possible.
Essentially, the first hive starts with zero biomass. The first biomass is 20 TRes and unlocks tunnels. The second biomass on the same hive costs 50. If you were to get biomass on hive one and drop a second hive, when it completes you immediately have two biomass as it seems any hive built after the first adds one biomass. So for the same costs and timing (estimated) as we have now you can get leap or for a STEEP res cost you can get leap on one hive.
edit: That's how it worked when I just jumped in and tested it on a listen server anyway.
it's just frustrating, you have to rely more on roulette teammates, and the 'rambo' players will just get a rambo weld partner and still have exactly the same proficiency.
I'm not sure I agree with your scenario here. For example, I was one of those pocket medics, my brother being a heavy. We were not a detriment to our team, in fact, one could argue we carried our team to victory. A pocket medic with a good player is just a way to stomp on the opposition. I feel the same could translate here in ns2. Not a fantastic aim? Grab a welder and weld the top guy on the list. I personally don't care if a 2 man team decides to hold an entire side of the map. In fact, isn't that just icing on the cake?
it's just frustrating, you have to rely more on roulette teammates, and the 'rambo' players will just get a rambo weld partner and still have exactly the same proficiency.
I'm not sure I agree with your scenario here. For example, I was one of those pocket medics, my brother being a heavy. We were not a detriment to our team, in fact, one could argue we carried our team to victory. A pocket medic with a good player is just a way to stomp on the opposition. I feel the same could translate here in ns2. Not a fantastic aim? Grab a welder and weld the top guy on the list. I personally don't care if a 2 man team decides to hold an entire side of the map. In fact, isn't that just icing on the cake?
Pretty sure he's talking about medics who completely ignore everyone else but their buddy, which indeed can be a problem in TF2. What he's forgetting however, is that NS2 doesn't have overhealing and you usually don't "heal" someone during fights unless they are an Exo, so there's really no reason in NS2 to stick to welding one person, ever.
From what I understand of the biomass thing, is that it makes 2nd tier abilities available on one hive.
Don't make leap available on hive 1, it will always be the first thing to be researched. It was tried before, don't want 25 second leap in the game again :P
Tier 2 is very powerful and should require map control(ie. a second hive).
Currently it costs 70 res to get leap on one hive and 2 biomass researches (which are quite long). 25 second leap is not possible.
Essentially, the first hive starts with zero biomass. The first biomass is 20 TRes and unlocks tunnels. The second biomass on the same hive costs 50. If you were to get biomass on hive one and drop a second hive, when it completes you immediately have two biomass as it seems any hive built after the first adds one biomass. So for the same costs and timing (estimated) as we have now you can get leap or for a STEEP res cost you can get leap on one hive.
edit: That's how it worked when I just jumped in and tested it on a listen server anyway.
So essentially, the need for a second hive is eliminated, they will never be built unless you have excessive resources. That is not good unless the need for a second CC for protolab is removed. No one will ever build a second hive until after they have 2 biomass upgrades and it will only be built to get a new place to spawn, closer to marine base and get a new tech path. I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure about this.
Why is the need for a second hive eliminated? You can only get up to 3 biomass on one hive, so for everything beyond say leap and gas you'd still need a second hive. At least this way aliens finally have some more strategic choices to make and aren't completely doomed if they can't get a second hive up right away.
From what I understand of the biomass thing, is that it makes 2nd tier abilities available on one hive.
Don't make leap available on hive 1, it will always be the first thing to be researched. It was tried before, don't want 25 second leap in the game again :P
Tier 2 is very powerful and should require map control(ie. a second hive).
Currently it costs 70 res to get leap on one hive and 2 biomass researches (which are quite long). 25 second leap is not possible.
Essentially, the first hive starts with zero biomass. The first biomass is 20 TRes and unlocks tunnels. The second biomass on the same hive costs 50. If you were to get biomass on hive one and drop a second hive, when it completes you immediately have two biomass as it seems any hive built after the first adds one biomass. So for the same costs and timing (estimated) as we have now you can get leap or for a STEEP res cost you can get leap on one hive.
edit: That's how it worked when I just jumped in and tested it on a listen server anyway.
So essentially, the need for a second hive is eliminated, they will never be built unless you have excessive resources. That is not good unless the need for a second CC for protolab is removed. No one will ever build a second hive until after they have 2 biomass upgrades and it will only be built to get a new place to spawn, closer to marine base and get a new tech path. I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure about this.
It is still cheaper TRes wise to go second hive to get leap rather than upgrading 2 biomass on your one hive. Leap in and of itself doesn't decide a game, the only reason it was so strong in the "25 second" situation was that it was out before marines had the tools to deal with it thus ending the early game skulk vs rifle phase too soon. The 50 res for the second hive biomass cost cannot be understated. That is A LOT of commitment to rush that upgrade out, combined with the large changes to chamber upgrade scaling.
Break down to get leap currently in this mod:
1 Hive + 2 biomass upgrades = 70 TRes + 2 long research times
2 Hive + 1 biomass upgrades = 60 TRes + 1 concurrent research time while gorge rushes up the second hive with heal spray
3 Hive = 80 TRes + no research
The way I have seen it play out so far in the mod, the 2 hive solution seems to work the fastest which is essentially what we have now. This completely ignores all expenditures on harvesters/drifters/upgrades that you should also be doing.
From what I understand of the biomass thing, is that it makes 2nd tier abilities available on one hive.
Don't make leap available on hive 1, it will always be the first thing to be researched. It was tried before, don't want 25 second leap in the game again :P
Tier 2 is very powerful and should require map control(ie. a second hive).
Currently it costs 70 res to get leap on one hive and 2 biomass researches (which are quite long). 25 second leap is not possible.
Essentially, the first hive starts with zero biomass. The first biomass is 20 TRes and unlocks tunnels. The second biomass on the same hive costs 50. If you were to get biomass on hive one and drop a second hive, when it completes you immediately have two biomass as it seems any hive built after the first adds one biomass. So for the same costs and timing (estimated) as we have now you can get leap or for a STEEP res cost you can get leap on one hive.
edit: That's how it worked when I just jumped in and tested it on a listen server anyway.
So essentially, the need for a second hive is eliminated, they will never be built unless you have excessive resources. That is not good unless the need for a second CC for protolab is removed. No one will ever build a second hive until after they have 2 biomass upgrades and it will only be built to get a new place to spawn, closer to marine base and get a new tech path. I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure about this.
Huh? He said that it costs a lot to upgrade a hive with biomass, more than it costs to just plop a new hive. Each hive can only accommodate 3 biomass, so eventually you will need more than one or else you lose out on more than half the aliens abilities.
I read it as expand if possible, but if you're locked down to one hive, you still have a way out if you save up.
Are they both official? Are they both in use by UWE? Do they both reflect actual changes in gameplay that UWE is either contemplating or testing? Is Flayra's now out of date since 240 has been released?
Not a whole lot of talk over the Vortex change. I only got so many chances to experience firsthand how useful the vanilla version may be against an overrun base and against Exo pushes, but the test version of Vortex feels like a more annoying version of Umbra. It doesn't seem to fit with the Fade's focus target harassment.
Are they both official? Are they both in use by UWE? Do they both reflect actual changes in gameplay that UWE is either contemplating or testing? Is Flayra's now out of date since 240 has been released?
Flayra's normally way closer to being implemented in the game, i.e we may very well see those changes in the next patch already. As for Sewlek's balance mod, I think it's still very much in an experimental phase and there's no guarantee that anything at all will make it into the game even. I do hope so though, because this has got to be the most exciting batch of proposed changes since I started playing all the way at the start of beta.
Comments
you could avoid 'inconvenience' by stacking onto a team with steam friends. ignore the rest of your team and just run around welding your friend. ever played TF2 where a player on your team has a pocket medic? i can tell you now that it's NOT fun or indicative of 'team play' when he ignores everyone else and just focuses on his friend.
again i'm not looking at my teammates with contempt, i'm just being pragmatic - i have over 2500 hours on TF2 and this happens ALL THE TIME (they ignore everyone on their team except their steam friend).
the ONLY thing it solves is reducing the power of the proxy/forward armory staging area. for which there are several superior options-the best being either advanced armory or prevent healing while in combat.
both changes i would support; nerf powerful forward armory and make spores etc more useful - two birds with one stone. instead of the welder idea which is two birds with one stone, then the stone goes through your window and 50 inch plasma.
I like the idea of armouries not healing armour - makes xeno a decent skill to use now. Remember that aliens dont get pres when waiting to spawn so a xeno is a penalty to the skulk.
Maybe have spores eat armour (or umbra). Since I love being a lerk this is an OP idea really.
Just wondering, did you play NS1? You're very, very against something that worked just fine for years in NS1 perfectly.
Aliens are still hit & run like they were, armories repairing armour was just a needless buff.
Also, I don't get why so many people think armouries not healing armour will make a negative impact on gameplay, because it absolutely won't. The only thing it does is encourage teamplay. Think about it for a second. When do you really use an armoury to heal yourself? When you're turtling in base or pushing somewhere with a forward armoury. In both cases, you will very likely have other marines around. Keeping everyone welded won't be an issue even if only 2 marines in the team have a welder at any given point. For every other scenario, like getting to places, ramboing RTs or all-in hive rushes, you wouldn't have an armoury available anyway, so be thankful that due to the change, a couple of marines will now always take welders along everywhere.
In addition to people learning they have to stick together to be efficient, everyone not running back to the armoury all the time allows and encourages you to push forward quicker as well. Players will naturally and intuitively learn to take turns welding, shooting and reloading. This is not "fake teamwork", it's something that should happen naturally, and this way everyone will be forced to adapt to a behaviour beneficial for everyone. It's just like someone else said, a mechanic that motivates players to work together and makes it clear this is a team game will eventually lead to actual teamwork. Intuitive learning is something severely lacking in this game, and this is a good enough start.
On a sidenote, saying "I don't trust my team, they suck anyway" is a silly argument as well as destructive thinking. Even if that's true, it's up to you to teach them. If you want to play singleplayer or be in an environment where everyone is a high level player, you should probably look elsewhere than the average pub server.
There's no reason to make welders free or even just cheaper. I nearly always carry a welder around as it stands, and can afford everything else I need throughout the game. If anything, it will stop 80% of the marine team from saving for exos and will introduce the feeling of having "roles" for marines: some people will always have a welder throughout a game, some will save for exo, someone will be the lonely RT rambo, and so on. This is also something that should happen naturally but often doesn't. With the welder change, coordination and communication needs to happen or you will likely lose the game. If you're not a selfish boob, you will see this as a good thing.
It's a big change but I wouldn't call it a nerf, obviously things will be altered before it reaches the public build.
Previously they both filled a role too similar. In a larger hallway or open space? I'm going to shadowstep + double jump down that. In a tigher space I went to get through/escape? I'm going to blink. They're both used for getting places.
With the changes in this build they feel very different, blink is for getting places and shadowstep acts like a great dodging tool. I like that, it makes more sense to have both now.
You are not comparing the mechanics in a parallel situation. Do you see Alien teams using Crags in the same way that Marines use Armories? They simply do not unless they have excess resources, you see them dropping Crags to heal up hives and at very specific locations for forward bases. Crags do not get spammed around the map often and if they do, the Alien team has a lot of extra resources to spend.
How is 5 pres for a Welder an unnecessary sink when Gorges are 10 res not including babblers/hydras/tunnels? You are just not considering the parallel. The changes fix Armories so that they act more like Crags instead of Gorges. Armories will be more likely used as base defense and offensive 'position-holders', rather than a cheap full healing post for each room on the map.
Should Gorges be free? Why would Welders be free?
In all honestly, I think the majority of the people complaining are just afraid to lose their first 20 pres in the first 5 minutes due to lack of resource management. At least this is something for Marines to spend their early res on without the commander having to research anything. Anyone else get tired of having 50+ pres and no mines/shotguns/welders? (provided a bad comm, this still happens)
EDIT: 'However, most people don't go gorge and then hang around healing people the rest of the game.' - This is simply untrue. A good gorge will set up defenses and (while playing smart) help their skulks push out by providing in-combat heals so they can continue moving up as they win fights. I do this all the time.
I get that is what it is trying to model, just if you blink upwards at all and then just hold forward while you wait to go back to the floor you have no forward momentum at all and kind of brick to the ground. It doesn't feel quite right. [at least in the iteration I tried]
you misunderstand.
medpacks are extremely useful in TF2, to simplify the analogy the armory change would be like having TF2 medpacks only heal to a maximum of 35% hp. why would they ever make such an arbitrary change? to promote team play? "now you need even more medics!! amazing new team play mechanic!!"
it's just frustrating, you have to rely more on roulette teammates, and the 'rambo' players will just get a rambo weld partner and still have exactly the same proficiency.
Don't make leap available on hive 1, it will always be the first thing to be researched. It was tried before, don't want 25 second leap in the game again :P
Tier 2 is very powerful and should require map control(ie. a second hive).
What you describe just didn't happen in NS1. I can see how it would in TF2 (after all, the medic can make himself and his heavy Steam mate invulnerable for a time with ubercharge), although that medic is being stupid not getting his charge sooner by healing all the other people on his team around him...
My gut feeling, based on the experience from NS1 and the very large difference between medics in TF2 and marines with welders in NS2, is that it's a non-issue. However, it needs to be tested in practice to work out whether the theoretical problems you describe are actually going to occur in NS2. That's why it's great to be able to test them in this mod, so thanks for putting this out there, @Sewlek, and thanks for the server hosting, @invTemptest and @kalakuja (the EU server still up? I can't play until tomorrow night
the distribution of the abilities is far away from final. thats just the very first order i came up with, without spending too much time thinking about it (just to get it working for testing)
I really hope you consider the biomass 'choice' idea, from page 3, I don't think any developer predetermined 'tech tree' is going to suffice, no matter how hard you try. It's just way better to allow khammanders to adjust the ability upgrade order on the fly, as different game situations arise. Within a predefined framework of what upgrades become available when of course. Sometimes you'll JUST need bilebomb over leap, so it becomes frustrating quick when you're stuck having to go through other upgrades first. And there's definitely a case to be made for making stronger abilities more expensive early on and lower tier abilities cheaper as the game progresses.
I.e 2 Bio bilebomb would be more expensive than 3 Bio bilebomb, 3 Bio BB is still more expensive than 4 Bio BB, etc that way there's some serious trade-offs to be made.
Here is the topic on ensl:
http://www.ensl.org/topics/678
Note: the server hosting ENSL is currently down due to getting a harddrive change, the old one was dying. But it should be up within a few hours.
Currently it costs 70 res to get leap on one hive and 2 biomass researches (which are quite long). 25 second leap is not possible.
Essentially, the first hive starts with zero biomass. The first biomass is 20 TRes and unlocks tunnels. The second biomass on the same hive costs 50. If you were to get biomass on hive one and drop a second hive, when it completes you immediately have two biomass as it seems any hive built after the first adds one biomass. So for the same costs and timing (estimated) as we have now you can get leap or for a STEEP res cost you can get leap on one hive.
edit: That's how it worked when I just jumped in and tested it on a listen server anyway.
I'm not sure I agree with your scenario here. For example, I was one of those pocket medics, my brother being a heavy. We were not a detriment to our team, in fact, one could argue we carried our team to victory. A pocket medic with a good player is just a way to stomp on the opposition. I feel the same could translate here in ns2. Not a fantastic aim? Grab a welder and weld the top guy on the list. I personally don't care if a 2 man team decides to hold an entire side of the map. In fact, isn't that just icing on the cake?
It is still cheaper TRes wise to go second hive to get leap rather than upgrading 2 biomass on your one hive. Leap in and of itself doesn't decide a game, the only reason it was so strong in the "25 second" situation was that it was out before marines had the tools to deal with it thus ending the early game skulk vs rifle phase too soon. The 50 res for the second hive biomass cost cannot be understated. That is A LOT of commitment to rush that upgrade out, combined with the large changes to chamber upgrade scaling.
Break down to get leap currently in this mod:
1 Hive + 2 biomass upgrades = 70 TRes + 2 long research times
2 Hive + 1 biomass upgrades = 60 TRes + 1 concurrent research time while gorge rushes up the second hive with heal spray
3 Hive = 80 TRes + no research
The way I have seen it play out so far in the mod, the 2 hive solution seems to work the fastest which is essentially what we have now. This completely ignores all expenditures on harvesters/drifters/upgrades that you should also be doing.
Huh? He said that it costs a lot to upgrade a hive with biomass, more than it costs to just plop a new hive. Each hive can only accommodate 3 biomass, so eventually you will need more than one or else you lose out on more than half the aliens abilities.
I read it as expand if possible, but if you're locked down to one hive, you still have a way out if you save up.
Are they both official? Are they both in use by UWE? Do they both reflect actual changes in gameplay that UWE is either contemplating or testing? Is Flayra's now out of date since 240 has been released?
chaining 3-4 simple wall-jumps and then spamming jump you move at light speed and could probably bite a marine on the nose before he can even react.
i don't think that's gonna work. but it's a lot of fun to play :P
edit: this skulk movement is rad... if marines suck in this mod then please buff marines rather than going back to boring skulk movement :P
Flayra's normally way closer to being implemented in the game, i.e we may very well see those changes in the next patch already. As for Sewlek's balance mod, I think it's still very much in an experimental phase and there's no guarantee that anything at all will make it into the game even. I do hope so though, because this has got to be the most exciting batch of proposed changes since I started playing all the way at the start of beta.