Drifters building things is silly and needs to go. This isn't Starcraft. Aliens need more player-commander interaction, not less. Make buildings build a little slower than in vanilla, but have Gorges build them faster than vanilla. Try to give more incentives for some people to go Gorge in the beginning of the game (which I know you are trying to do). The players are the workers, not the AI.
Gorges already build twice as fast as in vanilla. And in the matches that I played thus far, I actually always felt like we had too many Gorges on the team. 3 Gorges on a 8-9 player team seems overkill to me and does more harm than benefit.
For the Fade, I would love to have vanilla Shadowstep and double jump back. Those mechanics just add so much to Fade movement that is severely lacking in the BT mod. However, I like that Fades start with Blink as this helps to lessen the "lifeform explosion" that people sometimes complain about because a Fade with Blink and only Carapace will rapidly use up its small energy reserves trying to kill more than one Marine at a time, making it hard to get away.
Doesn't Fade already start with Shadowstep now? The upgrade is gone from the tech tree after all, there is only Vortex on 2 Hives left.
As for Camouflage, just remove it if you are going to keep nerfing it (when it is already considered to be terrible). The current form of Camouflage in vanilla NS2 is fine when combined with Silence to form Phantom. Please return the full invisibility to Phantom.
Disagree. It's a straight up buff to vanilla Silence, so there is no reason to not nerf it a bit. It still does a perfect job for what it's supposed to do. It's not supposed to turn back into the gameplay where marines can't do shit to counter it without constant scans.
Exos are just bad now. I'd rather have 75 res dual-minigun death machines than the tin cans we have now. Exos in vanilla force both sides to use teamwork to be successful and have enough drawbacks to not be ridiculous. As long as multiple Macs can't weld the same target, I think vanilla exos are fine.
Ultra powerful and expensive units are not really fun for either side. It's frustrating to lose your lifeform that you saved so long for in an instant from the crazy DPS. And it's frustrating to lose the expensive Exo and then not being able to afford anything again for a long time. Hence why they are weaker but more flexible and cheaper now. It encourages a good mix of player types instead of a mindless Exo pain train with MACs.
Same for Onos. Weaker Onos but earlier to acquire.
Carapace should be removed as an upgrade and replaced with something else. Biomass should be replaced with a global armor upgrade (Carapace) that permanently increases the armor of all lifeforms (and possibly structures) once per Hive (maximum of Carapace 4 with a 5 tech point map). Aliens would be able to upgrade the Carapace from any Hive up to the amount of Hives they have (Carapace 2 with 2 Hives), but it would persist even after Aliens lose a Hive. It wouldn't unlock upgrades but would add decision making for the Khammander.
How about no? Biomass does the job and is a nice addition. Permanent upgrades would be awful. Even marines lose their upgrades once they lose the Arms Lab. Why would you make it nearly impossible to beat an alien team once it got 3 Hives up for a short time, regardless of what happens in the rest of the match?
As for what to replace Carapace with, there have been many ideas thrown around already, but I'll add mine: My idea is for "Emergency Plating" (the name needs work) which is an upgrade that, when an Alien takes fatal damage (whether from a full shotgun blast or a single rifle bullet) they instead remain at 1 health but gain brief invulnerability (2-3 seconds; 30-60 second cooldown), giving them the chance to get away. The Alien's primary attack would be disabled during the invulnerability so that it can't be used offensively. It should give Aliens a visual on the UI that shows how long it lasts as well as the cooldown time left, and it should also give Marines a visual queue so that they know a single bullet will kill that fleeing Alien.
So many conditions and timers and cooldown and invulnerability would make it seem extremely unintuitive.
I prefer suggestions others have made already as replacement for Carapace and additional 3rd trait choices per tech path:
- Crag path gets Absorption (melee-range damage to organic targets heals the user; kills give an extra heal and energy bonus) and Reactive Armor (damage that would have killed you is reduced by 50%) as replacements for Carapace.
- Shift path gets Survivalist (increased attack rate, speed and energy regeneration when below 30% HP).
- Shade path gets Focus (increased damage, reduced attack rate).
I still hate Armories not healing armor. It isn't fun to die because nobody would weld you, and you have absolutely no way to weld yourself. We need some way to weld ourselves.
Ask you commander to get you a MAC from a Robotics Factory. There are so many incentives for an early Robotics already (Power Surge, Mine research, Exo research) that it's basically a no-brainer to go for it. If your commander is still not doing it, blame it on him and your team, not on the mechanic change. You could also drop a Welder and ask someone to weld you with it.
I don't see a reason to remove a beneficial feature for teamplay just because there are a few guys who can't play along. The majority of players on the BT servers I've seen is adjusting perfectly fine to the new need for Welders.
Low health resources towers is annoying and makes it almost useless to even build outlying resource towers as they will die long before anyone can respond (especially on the Marine side).
It's not as low as you make it out to be. Besides that you can do the same to the enemy team and the reduced HP also means that it's faster to rebuild them. It makes the gameplay a lot more dynamic than holding M1 for a whole minute on an RT to kill it. If marines don't defend the stuff actively, they deserve to lose it.
Spending pRes for switching upgrades as Aliens is nice as long as you remove the initial cost for selecting the upgrades (that might have been a bug).
It's not a bug, you have reduced lifeform cost in return. You can get a weak Onos for 60 pres already, but each upgrade costs 8 pres on them, so if you pick 2 traits you pay the same as for a vanilla Onos. It allows weaker lifeforms to come out early and it also means that a khammander can't pay the entire lifeform cost up front - the player still have to pay for the traits.
aeroripperJoin Date: 2005-02-25Member: 42471NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
Some more feedback:
DRIFTERS:
1) There is some weird select bug where if it's in a hotgroup it gets deselected when trying to use its abilities. Really frustrating.
2) The cooldown on its abilities has got to go. If you miss a shot of enzyme because the drifter didn't have proper LOS, its difficult to correct the mistake until those 5 seconds are up. That is what's nice about vanilla NS2 drifter, you can hit enzyme a few times just to make sure you hit the target. Usually the moment is gone if you miss and have to wait.
3) Drifters should not be building at all. Nothing is more annoying than having a shade hive, and a camo scout drifter moves to the structure instead of staying cloaked and not revealing its position in a combat area. Gorges should be doing the building. Also the perma cloak is much more useful for drifters. They're a direct tool for commander interaction with the world, and having them autobuild things is annoying.
INFESTATION:
1) New cyst range is nice, but I dislike the amount of time it takes to start infesting. I'd much rather see the vanilla NS2 infest rate and have a cooldown on building cysts instead. That might be annoying too, but it could be tested.
GENERAL:
1) LOVE being able to switch upgrades at will as alien. Wish vanilla NS2 had this.
2) I do like the "3 chambers = full upgrade" ala NS1 style alien upgrades. It's nice to have both upgrades available at the same time instead of waiting on the comm to research your favorite one. Opens up a lot more play style.
3) Getting res on death was a needed change. Show weld icons all the time is also nice.
4) Armory no longer repairing armor is a controversial change. I think it works great when you have a lot of teamwork-minded players, but its awful when people don't listen that you need a weld. Maybe teams deserve to lose if they don't work together?
5) LOVE the feel of the new jetpack. Feels much better than the current implementation. However the extra upgrade for more fuel may be a bit OP. I'd be happy with just the new movement mechanics.
Drifters building things is silly and needs to go. This isn't Starcraft. Aliens need more player-commander interaction, not less. Make buildings build a little slower than in vanilla, but have Gorges build them faster than vanilla. Try to give more incentives for some people to go Gorge in the beginning of the game (which I know you are trying to do). The players are the workers, not the AI.
Gorges already build twice as fast as in vanilla. And in the matches that I played thus far, I actually always felt like we had too many Gorges on the team. 3 Gorges on a 8-9 player team seems overkill to me and does more harm than benefit.
So why do we need Drifters to build?
For the Fade, I would love to have vanilla Shadowstep and double jump back. Those mechanics just add so much to Fade movement that is severely lacking in the BT mod. However, I like that Fades start with Blink as this helps to lessen the "lifeform explosion" that people sometimes complain about because a Fade with Blink and only Carapace will rapidly use up its small energy reserves trying to kill more than one Marine at a time, making it hard to get away.
Doesn't Fade already start with Shadowstep now? The upgrade is gone from the tech tree after all, there is only Vortex on 2 Hives left.
It didn't last time I played, but it changes daily so I'm not sure. Either way, the new Shadowstep is far too one-dimensional.
As for Camouflage, just remove it if you are going to keep nerfing it (when it is already considered to be terrible). The current form of Camouflage in vanilla NS2 is fine when combined with Silence to form Phantom. Please return the full invisibility to Phantom.
Disagree. It's a straight up buff to vanilla Silence, so there is no reason to not nerf it a bit. It still does a perfect job for what it's supposed to do. It's not supposed to turn back into the gameplay where marines can't do shit to counter it without constant scans.
Silence is bad in vanilla outside of 6v6 comp matches and Camouflage is bad in all matches. Combining the two just makes it a useful upgrade path so there is no need to make Camouflage completely worthless. The only thing vanilla Camouflage has going for it is the complete invisibility while motionless. Take that away and you might as well remove Camouflage completely.
Exos are just bad now. I'd rather have 75 res dual-minigun death machines than the tin cans we have now. Exos in vanilla force both sides to use teamwork to be successful and have enough drawbacks to not be ridiculous. As long as multiple Macs can't weld the same target, I think vanilla exos are fine.
Ultra powerful and expensive units are not really fun for either side. It's frustrating to lose your lifeform that you saved so long for in an instant from the crazy DPS. And it's frustrating to lose the expensive Exo and then not being able to afford anything again for a long time. Hence why they are weaker but more flexible and cheaper now. It encourages a good mix of player types instead of a mindless Exo pain train with MACs.
Same for Onos. Weaker Onos but earlier to acquire.
I have no problem with bringing them down a little (like they did for the Onos), but Exos now are just pathetic. Lowering their armor/dps a little for a small cost reduction would be good (something like 60 res for Dual-Miniguns).
Carapace should be removed as an upgrade and replaced with something else. Biomass should be replaced with a global armor upgrade (Carapace) that permanently increases the armor of all lifeforms (and possibly structures) once per Hive (maximum of Carapace 4 with a 5 tech point map). Aliens would be able to upgrade the Carapace from any Hive up to the amount of Hives they have (Carapace 2 with 2 Hives), but it would persist even after Aliens lose a Hive. It wouldn't unlock upgrades but would add decision making for the Khammander.
How about no? Biomass does the job and is a nice addition. Permanent upgrades would be awful. Even marines lose their upgrades once they lose the Arms Lab. Why would you make it nearly impossible to beat an alien team once it got 3 Hives up for a short time, regardless of what happens in the rest of the match?
I meant permanent for the lifeforms that are alive (like how Alien upgrades remain until death). Bad wording on my part.
As for what to replace Carapace with, there have been many ideas thrown around already, but I'll add mine: My idea is for "Emergency Plating" (the name needs work) which is an upgrade that, when an Alien takes fatal damage (whether from a full shotgun blast or a single rifle bullet) they instead remain at 1 health but gain brief invulnerability (2-3 seconds; 30-60 second cooldown), giving them the chance to get away. The Alien's primary attack would be disabled during the invulnerability so that it can't be used offensively. It should give Aliens a visual on the UI that shows how long it lasts as well as the cooldown time left, and it should also give Marines a visual queue so that they know a single bullet will kill that fleeing Alien.
So many conditions and timers and cooldown and invulnerability would make it seem extremely unintuitive.
I prefer suggestions others have made already as replacement for Carapace and additional 3rd trait choices per tech path:
- Crag path gets Absorption (melee-range damage to organic targets heals the user; kills give an extra heal and energy bonus) and Reactive Armor (damage that would have killed you is reduced by 50%) as replacements for Carapace.
- Shift path gets Survivalist (increased attack rate, speed and energy regeneration when below 30% HP).
- Shade path gets Focus (increased damage, reduced attack rate).
There are many things in this mod that are unintuitive.
I still hate Armories not healing armor. It isn't fun to die because nobody would weld you, and you have absolutely no way to weld yourself. We need some way to weld ourselves.
Ask you commander to get you a MAC from a Robotics Factory. There are so many incentives for an early Robotics already (Power Surge, Mine research, Exo research) that it's basically a no-brainer to go for it. If your commander is still not doing it, blame it on him and your team, not on the mechanic change. You could also drop a Welder and ask someone to weld you with it.
I don't see a reason to remove a beneficial feature for teamplay just because there are a few guys who can't play along. The majority of players on the BT servers I've seen is adjusting perfectly fine to the new need for Welders.
That's the problem. People that don't work together or listen will ruin Marine gameplay far more. You just need some way to weld yourself. It can be as simple as dropping your welder and standing on top of it.
Low health resources towers is annoying and makes it almost useless to even build outlying resource towers as they will die long before anyone can respond (especially on the Marine side).
It's not as low as you make it out to be. Besides that you can do the same to the enemy team and the reduced HP also means that it's faster to rebuild them. It makes the gameplay a lot more dynamic than holding M1 for a whole minute on an RT to kill it. If marines don't defend the stuff actively, they deserve to lose it.
And then it becomes a battle of Skulks vs. Extractors and Marines vs. Harvesters. So much fun.
Spending pRes for switching upgrades as Aliens is nice as long as you remove the initial cost for selecting the upgrades (that might have been a bug).
It's not a bug, you have reduced lifeform cost in return. You can get a weak Onos for 60 pres already, but each upgrade costs 8 pres on them, so if you pick 2 traits you pay the same as for a vanilla Onos. It allows weaker lifeforms to come out early and it also means that a khammander can't pay the entire lifeform cost up front - the player still have to pay for the traits.
Drifters building things is silly and needs to go. This isn't Starcraft. Aliens need more player-commander interaction, not less. Make buildings build a little slower than in vanilla, but have Gorges build them faster than vanilla. Try to give more incentives for some people to go Gorge in the beginning of the game (which I know you are trying to do). The players are the workers, not the AI.
Gorges already build twice as fast as in vanilla. And in the matches that I played thus far, I actually always felt like we had too many Gorges on the team. 3 Gorges on a 8-9 player team seems overkill to me and does more harm than benefit.
So why do we need Drifters to build?
Requiring Gorges to be present to build anything at a reasonable pace is far too strict. Any marine can build a structure at any time - the same can't be said of aliens, so comms would frequently be crippled by the absence of a Gorge in any given place.
That said I think there is a serious problem with the lack of intuitive feedback surrounding the build speed change. Aliens are going to lose countless games if that goes live because khamms just won't notice that none of their structures are getting finished. If it's going to stay I suggest going all the way and adding structure blueprints for aliens(with a different visual theme). Disable all auto-building, but allow comms to construct with nutrient mist as well.
Drifters building things is silly and needs to go. This isn't Starcraft. Aliens need more player-commander interaction, not less. Make buildings build a little slower than in vanilla, but have Gorges build them faster than vanilla. Try to give more incentives for some people to go Gorge in the beginning of the game (which I know you are trying to do). The players are the workers, not the AI.
Gorges already build twice as fast as in vanilla. And in the matches that I played thus far, I actually always felt like we had too many Gorges on the team. 3 Gorges on a 8-9 player team seems overkill to me and does more harm than benefit.
So why do we need Drifters to build?
Requiring Gorges to be present to build anything at a reasonable pace is far too strict. Any marine can build a structure at any time - the same can't be said of aliens, so comms would frequently be crippled by the absence of a Gorge in any given place.
That said I think there is a serious problem with the lack of intuitive feedback surrounding the build speed change. Aliens are going to lose countless games if that goes live because khamms just won't notice that none of their structures are getting finished. If it's going to stay I suggest going all the way and adding structure blueprints for aliens(with a different visual theme). Disable all auto-building, but allow comms to construct with nutrient mist as well.
The way it works in vanilla is fine. You don't need Gorges but they are quite helpful. With the new cyst system added in, Gorging will be just that much more helpful as they can run around and greatly speed up infestation spread. Increase vanilla build times by ~15% and increase Gorge build rate increase by ~25% and I believe it would be good.
What's the general consensus on BT Fade movement? I haven't played with the BT Fade much, but I must admit I love shadowstep-jump-jump as a movement system and would be sad if they removed it from the game.
Most people hate it at first, but once you get it down it's actually better than the vanilla version. I love the simplicity of the current fade movement, it's easy and fun and feels a lot like skiing in tribes, and it's being replaced by a mechanic that's been done to death... but gameplay wise the new fade is much much stronger. It's had its damage per swipe reduced to 75 to compensate for the extra health/mobility that it has.
Not sure how the drifter building is supposed to 'tie up' the alien economy. It's a nonsensical argument really. All it does is add an additional delay and cost for the aliens, something you could easily incorporate with the original design.
Why not have the commander either drop or 'pool' (commander pays for it, gorges can then drop it) an RT that can then only be grown or dropped by gorges? If you're serious about addressing the underlying imbalance in the alien/marine economy, you should fix it in a way we know will work, i.e by bringing back gorge builders. Heck, I'd still be in favour of getting rid of the alien commander entirely, but I'm guessing that's still a taboo subject. Despite it by now being clear that the implementation of the alien commander hasn't exactly been worth it, thrilling or otherwise innovative.
Metal ManJoin Date: 2011-11-13Member: 132717Members
Please I beg you no drifters as builders. That is the complete opposite of addressing the problem. With drifters acting as builders there will be even more dissociation for the aliens. UNLESS there is a more extreme cost and cooldown to drifter building... but i still don't like it.
There really needs to be a defensive/protective role in the early game. Dramatically slow down all non-cyst structure growth, and, in turn, allow all gorges to dramatically increase structure growth. It allows strategies to develop when dictating expansion and direction. A strong push towards the marine camp? A defensive approach? A gradual outward growth in all directions? Currently, only the last option is applicable and it really isn't very gradual and it isn't ever fun or unique.
I think the most important aspect of all this is changing the early game. It feels very rushed and insignificant currently because of the void between the alien players and the commander. Back in the day, when gorges acted as "comms," the alien team had a greater sense of unity and camaraderie. Skulks would RUSH across the map to get to a gorge who was pinned down or in immediate danger. Saving a gorge, even within the first few minutes, was clutch as shit.
If drifters are implemented as the primary builders, please make it an important factor when one lives or dies. Because isn't the staple of any RTS protecting and accumulating resources?
Please I beg you no drifters as builders. That is the complete opposite of addressing the problem. With drifters acting as builders there will be even more dissociation for the aliens. UNLESS there is a more extreme cost and cooldown to drifter building... but i still don't like it.
There really needs to be a defensive/protective role in the early game. Dramatically slow down all non-cyst structure growth, and, in turn, allow all gorges to dramatically increase structure growth. It allows strategies to develop when dictating expansion and direction. A strong push towards the marine camp? A defensive approach? A gradual outward growth in all directions? Currently, only the last option is applicable and it really isn't very gradual and it isn't ever fun or unique.
I think the most important aspect of all this is changing the early game. It feels very rushed and insignificant currently because of the void between the alien players and the commander. Back in the day, when gorges acted as "comms," the alien team had a greater sense of unity and camaraderie. Skulks would RUSH across the map to get to a gorge who was pinned down or in immediate danger. Saving a gorge, even within the first few minutes, was clutch as shit.
If drifters are implemented as the primary builders, please make it an important factor when one lives or dies. Because isn't the staple of any RTS protecting and accumulating resources?
Why do we want to nerf the alien's early game? If it takes forever to build structures and you have to defend them for longer + have more gorges, the marines are just going to expand everywhere you aren't and have you out-teched by 5 minutes into the game. The early game is already very unforgiving, and making alien structures build slower is just going to compound that problem. It's already hard to come back if you lose your RT's before they pay for themselves.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited May 2013
@ritualsacrifice Because early game the only thing aliens have to do is be offensive and attack / prevent expansion from marines. While marines have to do that as well plus build and expand and defend. etc
In vanilla ns2, Aliens don't actually have to assist in any building, its nearly automatic given the one player dedicated to it (gorge is optional) and they really don't have any real contributions to early game expansion - the most important portion of a a round sometimes.
That's the reason for the recent gorge changes and the building times i believe, to increase player involvement with expansion and to create a weaker start, so that if the only thing the team does is be offensive, they risk everything.
But if they're defending, then the marines are going to take the rest of the map.
This is already a problem in the vanilla version, making RT's slower to build is only going to make it worse. If the marines put heavy pressure on the aliens early, the aliens have no choice but to defend or to attempt a base rush. Base rushes are almost always a bad idea. So the smart decision is to defend. If you pull back to defend and aren't successful, it's basically GG.
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
What are you basing this on? Public?
Generally, after clearing a 3 man push it's not difficult to push out as aliens and take out a few rts. It's not like every lifeform needs to respond to every pressure team either.
Personally I think we should all just go back to playing NS1, which was a superior game in almost every respect. I'll hedge with almost, even though I can't think of a single feature of ns2 that I prefer over the original gameplay. It had depth, without all the needless complexity that has been added with ns2. Plus the engine was written by professionals, so none of the frame stuttering and all the other performance issues that plague this game.
Generally, after clearing a 3 man push it's not difficult to push out as aliens and take out a few rts. It's not like every lifeform needs to respond to every pressure team either.
How many people are you going to send to clear out that team though? 3? 4? 5?
Most people would say that in a 3v3 fight, the marines have the advantage. So if you're playing it safe you want to send at least 4 aliens to clear it out. That leaves 2 skulks to go attempt to clear RT's on one side. You might be successful in defending the harvester and taking out one of their rts, sure. But if you aren't successful it's GG in ~5 minutes.. there's no coming back from it.
I'm not saying it'll happen every time, but it will make the skill-gap even more apparent than it already is. The game will become even less about strategy and more about who can out-frag eachother.
Not to mention what I think is the most important point: Why nerf aliens when the aliens are already losing more often than the marines? Unless the balance has been tipped recently and I hadn't noticed.. but I've yet to see aliens win unless the teams were stacked, and Sewlek himself has said that Marines are winning more often than not.
I'm going to keep repeating what I have said before. Aliens when they are in the lead are hampered heavily by the time everything takes to research and build. Marines don't have any real research time on their stuff, just cost. Really dumb to see full JP and AA weapons by the 10 minute mark.
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited May 2013
Fade Blinking Effects: Enable | Disable
I'm going to keep repeating what I have said before. Aliens when they are in the lead are hampered heavily by the time everything takes to research and build. Marines don't have any real research time on their stuff, just cost. Really dumb to see full JP and AA weapons by the 10 minute mark.
It's not like it's impossible to get JPs and Exos up in vanilla really early, it's not difficult to get JPs at 5 minutes if you're holding enough. If the marines have gone for early JPs, there's the potential for starved pres later on if they're being lost due to low upgrades.
I think it's a good option to have and it does have downsides.
When can we expect changes from this mod to be put into the official version. I have only got two servers in a playable ping range, and none of them run the balance mod...
ns2 is fundamentally flawed at the core of its design. Nothing in this mod really addresses the key design issues in the game, and in many ways, makes it worse.
What exactly would be those fundamental flaws? And if your going to just say infestation and the power grid dont waste my time...
no, i actually understand fps game design pretty well.
the idea of making higher skilled traveling mechanics rather than improve the combat mechanics (and skulk combat mechanics are really, really bad) is flawed
the entire idea of an overhead commander is flawed and nothing more than a gimmick. The appeal of the game should be that it has resource collection and strategy in it, not that someone literally plays an rts with an incredibly low skill ceiling while other people play an fps. You can have base building, resource collection, and strategy without that element. Think on this: tribes 2 has far more strategic depth than ns1 or ns2 without anybody playing an rts at the same time.
other shit like forcing teamwork by not letting the armory heal armor breaks fundamental fps design concepts. Teamwork should not be forced. The visuals in the game are still incredibly stupid, needlessly obfuscating enemies and rewarding people with expensive hardware more than it should.
power nodes and infestation probably aren't helping things, though
Only one of those points is a fundamental flaw, and that point is arguable. Considering the game focuses on being a RTS/FPS with commander(s), that point is as set in stone as the powergrid and infestation systems. The skill requirements for commanding in NS will never require high APM or micro like a traditional RTS, but that doesnt mean that there is not skill required, or that it needs to be a dull role.
Other points there are really just your opinion, but all of those are not really fundamental IMO and are things that can be changed/improved upon continually. I do agree that visual impairment has no place in this game.
There are many fundamental problems still left unaddressed in the mod, however most of them end up tying into features that are not feasible to be changed.
Comments
Gorges already build twice as fast as in vanilla. And in the matches that I played thus far, I actually always felt like we had too many Gorges on the team. 3 Gorges on a 8-9 player team seems overkill to me and does more harm than benefit.
Doesn't Fade already start with Shadowstep now? The upgrade is gone from the tech tree after all, there is only Vortex on 2 Hives left.
Disagree. It's a straight up buff to vanilla Silence, so there is no reason to not nerf it a bit. It still does a perfect job for what it's supposed to do. It's not supposed to turn back into the gameplay where marines can't do shit to counter it without constant scans.
Ultra powerful and expensive units are not really fun for either side. It's frustrating to lose your lifeform that you saved so long for in an instant from the crazy DPS. And it's frustrating to lose the expensive Exo and then not being able to afford anything again for a long time. Hence why they are weaker but more flexible and cheaper now. It encourages a good mix of player types instead of a mindless Exo pain train with MACs.
Same for Onos. Weaker Onos but earlier to acquire.
How about no? Biomass does the job and is a nice addition. Permanent upgrades would be awful. Even marines lose their upgrades once they lose the Arms Lab. Why would you make it nearly impossible to beat an alien team once it got 3 Hives up for a short time, regardless of what happens in the rest of the match?
So many conditions and timers and cooldown and invulnerability would make it seem extremely unintuitive.
I prefer suggestions others have made already as replacement for Carapace and additional 3rd trait choices per tech path:
- Crag path gets Absorption (melee-range damage to organic targets heals the user; kills give an extra heal and energy bonus) and Reactive Armor (damage that would have killed you is reduced by 50%) as replacements for Carapace.
- Shift path gets Survivalist (increased attack rate, speed and energy regeneration when below 30% HP).
- Shade path gets Focus (increased damage, reduced attack rate).
Ask you commander to get you a MAC from a Robotics Factory. There are so many incentives for an early Robotics already (Power Surge, Mine research, Exo research) that it's basically a no-brainer to go for it. If your commander is still not doing it, blame it on him and your team, not on the mechanic change. You could also drop a Welder and ask someone to weld you with it.
I don't see a reason to remove a beneficial feature for teamplay just because there are a few guys who can't play along. The majority of players on the BT servers I've seen is adjusting perfectly fine to the new need for Welders.
It's not as low as you make it out to be. Besides that you can do the same to the enemy team and the reduced HP also means that it's faster to rebuild them. It makes the gameplay a lot more dynamic than holding M1 for a whole minute on an RT to kill it. If marines don't defend the stuff actively, they deserve to lose it.
It's not a bug, you have reduced lifeform cost in return. You can get a weak Onos for 60 pres already, but each upgrade costs 8 pres on them, so if you pick 2 traits you pay the same as for a vanilla Onos. It allows weaker lifeforms to come out early and it also means that a khammander can't pay the entire lifeform cost up front - the player still have to pay for the traits.
DRIFTERS:
1) There is some weird select bug where if it's in a hotgroup it gets deselected when trying to use its abilities. Really frustrating.
2) The cooldown on its abilities has got to go. If you miss a shot of enzyme because the drifter didn't have proper LOS, its difficult to correct the mistake until those 5 seconds are up. That is what's nice about vanilla NS2 drifter, you can hit enzyme a few times just to make sure you hit the target. Usually the moment is gone if you miss and have to wait.
3) Drifters should not be building at all. Nothing is more annoying than having a shade hive, and a camo scout drifter moves to the structure instead of staying cloaked and not revealing its position in a combat area. Gorges should be doing the building. Also the perma cloak is much more useful for drifters. They're a direct tool for commander interaction with the world, and having them autobuild things is annoying.
INFESTATION:
1) New cyst range is nice, but I dislike the amount of time it takes to start infesting. I'd much rather see the vanilla NS2 infest rate and have a cooldown on building cysts instead. That might be annoying too, but it could be tested.
GENERAL:
1) LOVE being able to switch upgrades at will as alien. Wish vanilla NS2 had this.
2) I do like the "3 chambers = full upgrade" ala NS1 style alien upgrades. It's nice to have both upgrades available at the same time instead of waiting on the comm to research your favorite one. Opens up a lot more play style.
3) Getting res on death was a needed change. Show weld icons all the time is also nice.
4) Armory no longer repairing armor is a controversial change. I think it works great when you have a lot of teamwork-minded players, but its awful when people don't listen that you need a weld. Maybe teams deserve to lose if they don't work together?
5) LOVE the feel of the new jetpack. Feels much better than the current implementation. However the extra upgrade for more fuel may be a bit OP. I'd be happy with just the new movement mechanics.
So why do we need Drifters to build?
It didn't last time I played, but it changes daily so I'm not sure. Either way, the new Shadowstep is far too one-dimensional.
Silence is bad in vanilla outside of 6v6 comp matches and Camouflage is bad in all matches. Combining the two just makes it a useful upgrade path so there is no need to make Camouflage completely worthless. The only thing vanilla Camouflage has going for it is the complete invisibility while motionless. Take that away and you might as well remove Camouflage completely.
I have no problem with bringing them down a little (like they did for the Onos), but Exos now are just pathetic. Lowering their armor/dps a little for a small cost reduction would be good (something like 60 res for Dual-Miniguns).
I meant permanent for the lifeforms that are alive (like how Alien upgrades remain until death). Bad wording on my part.
There are many things in this mod that are unintuitive.
That's the problem. People that don't work together or listen will ruin Marine gameplay far more. You just need some way to weld yourself. It can be as simple as dropping your welder and standing on top of it.
And then it becomes a battle of Skulks vs. Extractors and Marines vs. Harvesters. So much fun.
Weaker lifeforms that cost more, yay.
Requiring Gorges to be present to build anything at a reasonable pace is far too strict. Any marine can build a structure at any time - the same can't be said of aliens, so comms would frequently be crippled by the absence of a Gorge in any given place.
That said I think there is a serious problem with the lack of intuitive feedback surrounding the build speed change. Aliens are going to lose countless games if that goes live because khamms just won't notice that none of their structures are getting finished. If it's going to stay I suggest going all the way and adding structure blueprints for aliens(with a different visual theme). Disable all auto-building, but allow comms to construct with nutrient mist as well.
The way it works in vanilla is fine. You don't need Gorges but they are quite helpful. With the new cyst system added in, Gorging will be just that much more helpful as they can run around and greatly speed up infestation spread. Increase vanilla build times by ~15% and increase Gorge build rate increase by ~25% and I believe it would be good.
Why not have the commander either drop or 'pool' (commander pays for it, gorges can then drop it) an RT that can then only be grown or dropped by gorges? If you're serious about addressing the underlying imbalance in the alien/marine economy, you should fix it in a way we know will work, i.e by bringing back gorge builders. Heck, I'd still be in favour of getting rid of the alien commander entirely, but I'm guessing that's still a taboo subject. Despite it by now being clear that the implementation of the alien commander hasn't exactly been worth it, thrilling or otherwise innovative.
There really needs to be a defensive/protective role in the early game. Dramatically slow down all non-cyst structure growth, and, in turn, allow all gorges to dramatically increase structure growth. It allows strategies to develop when dictating expansion and direction. A strong push towards the marine camp? A defensive approach? A gradual outward growth in all directions? Currently, only the last option is applicable and it really isn't very gradual and it isn't ever fun or unique.
I think the most important aspect of all this is changing the early game. It feels very rushed and insignificant currently because of the void between the alien players and the commander. Back in the day, when gorges acted as "comms," the alien team had a greater sense of unity and camaraderie. Skulks would RUSH across the map to get to a gorge who was pinned down or in immediate danger. Saving a gorge, even within the first few minutes, was clutch as shit.
If drifters are implemented as the primary builders, please make it an important factor when one lives or dies. Because isn't the staple of any RTS protecting and accumulating resources?
Why do we want to nerf the alien's early game? If it takes forever to build structures and you have to defend them for longer + have more gorges, the marines are just going to expand everywhere you aren't and have you out-teched by 5 minutes into the game. The early game is already very unforgiving, and making alien structures build slower is just going to compound that problem. It's already hard to come back if you lose your RT's before they pay for themselves.
In vanilla ns2, Aliens don't actually have to assist in any building, its nearly automatic given the one player dedicated to it (gorge is optional) and they really don't have any real contributions to early game expansion - the most important portion of a a round sometimes.
That's the reason for the recent gorge changes and the building times i believe, to increase player involvement with expansion and to create a weaker start, so that if the only thing the team does is be offensive, they risk everything.
But if they're defending, then the marines are going to take the rest of the map.
This is already a problem in the vanilla version, making RT's slower to build is only going to make it worse. If the marines put heavy pressure on the aliens early, the aliens have no choice but to defend or to attempt a base rush. Base rushes are almost always a bad idea. So the smart decision is to defend. If you pull back to defend and aren't successful, it's basically GG.
Generally, after clearing a 3 man push it's not difficult to push out as aliens and take out a few rts. It's not like every lifeform needs to respond to every pressure team either.
How many people are you going to send to clear out that team though? 3? 4? 5?
Most people would say that in a 3v3 fight, the marines have the advantage. So if you're playing it safe you want to send at least 4 aliens to clear it out. That leaves 2 skulks to go attempt to clear RT's on one side. You might be successful in defending the harvester and taking out one of their rts, sure. But if you aren't successful it's GG in ~5 minutes.. there's no coming back from it.
I'm not saying it'll happen every time, but it will make the skill-gap even more apparent than it already is. The game will become even less about strategy and more about who can out-frag eachother.
Not to mention what I think is the most important point: Why nerf aliens when the aliens are already losing more often than the marines? Unless the balance has been tipped recently and I hadn't noticed.. but I've yet to see aliens win unless the teams were stacked, and Sewlek himself has said that Marines are winning more often than not.
It's not like it's impossible to get JPs and Exos up in vanilla really early, it's not difficult to get JPs at 5 minutes if you're holding enough. If the marines have gone for early JPs, there's the potential for starved pres later on if they're being lost due to low upgrades.
I think it's a good option to have and it does have downsides.
ns2 is fundamentally flawed at the core of its design. Nothing in this mod really addresses the key design issues in the game, and in many ways, makes it worse.
the idea of making higher skilled traveling mechanics rather than improve the combat mechanics (and skulk combat mechanics are really, really bad) is flawed
the entire idea of an overhead commander is flawed and nothing more than a gimmick. The appeal of the game should be that it has resource collection and strategy in it, not that someone literally plays an rts with an incredibly low skill ceiling while other people play an fps. You can have base building, resource collection, and strategy without that element. Think on this: tribes 2 has far more strategic depth than ns1 or ns2 without anybody playing an rts at the same time.
other shit like forcing teamwork by not letting the armory heal armor breaks fundamental fps design concepts. Teamwork should not be forced. The visuals in the game are still incredibly stupid, needlessly obfuscating enemies and rewarding people with expensive hardware more than it should.
power nodes and infestation probably aren't helping things, though
Other points there are really just your opinion, but all of those are not really fundamental IMO and are things that can be changed/improved upon continually. I do agree that visual impairment has no place in this game.
There are many fundamental problems still left unaddressed in the mod, however most of them end up tying into features that are not feasible to be changed.