Combat servers are a horrible example to make your point. You really can't use combat servers as an example because combat is a game mode designed specifically for casual/individual play, where people go to just mess around, practice their lifeforms, shoot stuff, and where dying has little consequence. You don't see any teamplay on combat servers because it's not designed around teamplay.
And what do you think the public players are doing in vanilla?
You just went and proved my point about this thread being detached from the majority of players.
And dying does not have little consequence. I suspect you haven't played any Combat Servers ever. Every time you die, the enemy gets stronger. The team that feeds is the team that gets stomped. A single player dying a lot can result in the opposing team teching very quickly to the point it becomes a stomp. It is extremely imperative to minimize dying in Combat Servers to prevent the opposing team from upgrading. Two good players on a Combat Server with 10 new players will lose the game to 12 mediocre players who aren't feeding. In fact, if you did play Combat Servers, you'd know that Veteran Combat Players outright complain when their team is feeding. Dying has significant consequences. It can determine if the Marine team comes at you in 2 minutes all armed with shotguns, the Alien team getting majority Fades at 2.5 minutes or facing a team stuck with skulks and level 1 rifles. You are wrong here. Deadly wrong.
Heck, one particularly appalling game I saw a bunch of Aliens go one and a time feeding marines. In a minute and a half the Marine team with 6 GLs hit the Hive and took it out while the rest had level 2 shotguns. The Aliens were so out teched that they didn't stand a chance. Don't even give me that bull**** that dying has little consequence in combat servers.
And when Xeno starts popping out, Marines still don't weld each other's armor despite it being the only real way to survive a Xeno. The fact that they don't is why Xeno can be spectacularly useful.
Vanilla NS2 pub servers have a lot more teamplay going on than combat NS2 servers, even if it's full of rookies.
Did you miss my point here? I gave a perfect example of a game play mode where armor repair is restricted. Competitive players detached from the rest of the population have this asinine notion that people will suddenly start working together because of need for welding. Beyond the fact that you are flat up wrong on Combat Servers, people don't weld when welding is absolutely vital. What is even worse is you get XP for welding and people STILL don't do it. So when it's in their own best individual interest, they still don't do it. Exos often end up begging people to weld them. The idea that no armor repair will suddenly create coherent teams is so detached from reality that I gotta wonder if you guys work for Microsoft on Windows 8.
I'm positive people will pick up on the welding stuff pretty fast. It's not exactly brain surgery. If you can get rookies to go to place x and build y, you can get them to weld each other as well. Overall, it might even buff the marine team slightly on low skill pub servers, as the average player will no longer spend that much time sticking around armories and will more often weld up teammates in the field.
Somethings tells me you haven't played a public server in a long, long time. You clearly haven't played more than a few minutes of Combat Servers.
This is thread is a perfect example of group think.
Anyway, have you played the balance test mod? Do you have any trouble getting someone to weld you?
Yes, I couldn't stand it after 15 minutes. Sure, some of the ideas look good, but no glance bites and no armor repair made the game extremely unbalanced in public play.
Yes, when you die the enemy gets a little stronger. That's right, but it doesn't matter. Overall, on combat servers, people don't care if a teammate dies. Because most people don't play combat for the teamplay experience. That's not what this mod is good for. It's for constant fragging action, levelling up, practicing your aim/lifeform. It's much more likely to see some form of teamplay happening on vanilla pub servers, than it's likely so see teamplay on combat servers. I've played both plenty to tell the difference, I assure you. In any case, I didn't miss your point, I was trying to explain why your example is ill-fitted to prove your point.
You simply can not hold up a mod that has put so much focus on the individual to try and illustrate a lack of teamplay inherent to the game, when vanilla NS2 actually plays out so much different. It's like claiming a playerbase of any game lacks the capacity for teamplay by using an unofficial deathmatch game mode as an example. People play differently depending on the game mode. And people weld more often on bt servers than on combat servers.
You should play the BT mod some more than just the 15 min.
My biggest qualm about welders is that they still cost money in a significant enough amount to dent your ability to buy things later on. The newbie/average pub player in a pub game will die maybe 5-8 times on a good day, I just made that up but the point is this: that's 20-36 pres gone if they had to buy a welder every time. It's just flat out not worth it. Not when buying a shotgun or two could improve my own ability to survive. Tack on a teamplayer pack of mines and you're out of luck later in the game when you need to grab that jetpack and shotty.
Maybe if welders cost 1 pres I'd be alright with it.
Virsoul brought up an idea on the stream that I think is definitely worth looking into. If welding is a neccesity now to keep marines alive, make marines start with some capability to weld eachother. I like the idea of having "E to repair" things but at a slower rate than a welder would do. Then have welders researchable at the armory. Personally, I don't mind the idea of removing the axe and just starting with a welder.
Also, I see no reason for AAs to not repair armor. Sure sure, discouraging turtles. But in all reality, the new system does nothing of the sort, people will just weld each other in a turtle now. Some people just like to turtle (there's an entire mod about it!).
Also to everyone saying "play the BT mod!" Every time I've played it A: I've had to put up with 170 ping to the only german server that actually has enough people to consistently play on it. and B: I've always played mostly silent games full of people on both radical ends of the spectrum (pub to comp) who are still just testing the waters. I'd LOVE to play an actual game of BT with people who are all my skill level (pub decent). Thing is, that just isn't happening. Also: stop stacking teams on the only BT server with people on it.
Just out of curiosity, why do people think that pub players will suddenly work in a team when welders are required for repairing armor?
Don't even bother, you are wasting your time posting in these threads using day to day NS2 experience in an argument about armouries not repairing armour as bad. You see there was this mod 10 years ago called Natural Selection 1 that had armouries that didn't repair armour and that's the entire basis we're going to work off here.
You can't look in the AMX forum for natural selection without scrolling past multiple self weld/multiple weld mods but ignore that, this change will be good.
Was noted that lots of people in NS1 without armour/parasited used to suicide off multiple areas or rambo deep and draw in multiple skulks or typed kill commands, ignore that.
There's been 0 competitive matches in which marines camping an armoury pulled off a win against a superior sized alien force, ignore that, this change will be good.
Can't play a single round on marines with exos out without someone whinging no one is welding their 50-75 pres investment, ignore that too, this change will be good.
Game modes within natural selection (co) already reward people for welding and put a high risk/reward on deaths/kills yet people rarely buy a welder, keep the blinkers on because this change will be good.
What's even better is that half the "competitive" morons posting here will be equally afflicted, nearly every comp player is Aus would rage quit out of servers if aliens were using camo because they "relied too heavily on comm not being shit to scan when I told them" and here they are pushing a team wide nerf onto marines that will result in them either 1) waiting around for welds repeatedly or 2) losing their pres SG/JP and inevitably 3) rage quitting and complaining that pubs are shit and have nfi what to do and why isn't there any pug/gather going.
Oh wait we already have 3 enough as it is, put more fuel on that fire will do it some good.
For me the smart way to approach armor is to keep armor repair to welding, but assume that marines don't necessary have their armor up most of the round. You should be able to have fun and play in meaningful ways even without armor. Someone welding you is a nice bonus, but in no way expected in your average casual play.
What the competitive players are frankly completely blind to is that having no armor repair makes newer marines much easier to kill. The game population is small. No one can argue with that. So, does it make sense to make it frustrating for new players? What happens when you put decent alien players against new marines with no armor repair? Frustration. We saw a similar behavior during free weekend when come douche-bag competitive players went around the rookie servers getting obscene scores (like 100-1 Fade). A fair number of players on the Steam Forums cited this as why they didn't buy it. Thus, it makes little sense in the context of getting new players into the game to make it significantly easier to kill them. If the competitive players want to mod the game into irrelevance to the point where the population is on par with online PC Halo 2 (prior to MS shutting the servers), that's their prerogative, but it seems rather short sighted.
Your post is kind of a flamebait as it is, but whatever...
I'm not blind to problems that newbies face. I'm saying that if the armorless newbie is somehow meaningless on the field, we have to make him have more meaningful things to do without the armor rather than making him suddenly replenenish his armor. I'd like to think it's more fun to the newbie also as he can try to push into alien territory, explore the map and feel like he's participating in the RTS action rather than him being confined to the close proximity of armory support all round long.
There's a limit on all this though. If someone wants to pubstomp, it's going to happen regardless of whether there's an armory healing the newbie's armor or not. You can't expect a skill based FPS to put a seasoned veteran and a newbie on the same server and expect any kind of even match. If pubstomping is considered to be too much of a problem, it has to be dealt with something else than promoting armory hugging that makes the marine turtling even easier and likely results in prolonged uneven rounds.
Welders are without a doubt the most cost effective item in the game currently. I think players can't underestimate just how powerful marine armor is. Not only does it give at least give you at least extra 0.6 sec of survival, it also gives the commander much more time to drop medpacks on you. During the 0.6 sec(per armor upgrade) you have chance to dodge or be saved by a covering ally. If you have a shotgun you get a extra shot or might be able to fire your pistol clip. Having full armor constantly without any res cost is simply insane, even in bt I would say 5tres macs are to powerful with their free welding.
Free armor just rewards defensive play way to much. Marines should be out there fighting, not standing next to armories all game(like happens to often in vanilla). Also both teams now have more mechanics where teamplay makes them much much stronger. Aliens can combine their strength with lerk umbra + gorge forward healing with skulk/fades while marines get use welders. If one team uses these mechanics to their advantage and the other don't then there is high chance they will simply lose, rewarding teamwork.
As the players get better you will see more players use welders. Its ok that new players don't weld each other because the aliens won't be working as well together as well. As players get better they start to support their teammates better. In the end you will see more veteran players use these mechanics because they want to win games. Rewarding teamwork should be a good thing. We can already see more players use welders in the BT, so that should give a nice hint for the future.
Skulk Movement - Freaking Awesome
Fade Movement - I can actually use fade now, and it's FUN
Onos - All good here
Gorge Movement - I'm so slow... Is there a trick for this I don't know? Is the only way to move faster to slide? It kind of sucks to have to choose between healing myself and doing a belly slide while trying to escape. It seems more effective currently to just keep healing than to do a belly slide to get out of there which kind of seems like the opposite of how it should be.
Lerk. You used to be my favorite. I can't play Lerk in the BT because it flys so awkwardly. Gliding was a huge part of the Lerk (and it looks like that may have come back in recent iterations of the BT), flapping is not actually much fun. Flapping at key points can be. Right now the forward flying feels ok, and it's really easy to stick to walls to perch (which is good), but hitting the strafe keys makes it fly really strangely. Before I could use the strafe keys to kind of fly circles around people as well as to bank around corners. Now it's doing something really strange. I am looking forward to this portion of the mod getting some more attention, considering all the rest of the movement has got so good.
Gorge has Gorge-hop. :P
You can use the simple combination of bellyslide and jump (shift + jump), then maintain speed by hopping. You can easily travel with speeds of around 6-7 without celerity.
Lerk does feel rather odd without downward gravity while gliding. On the other hand, I welcome the air acceleration lerks now gain without flapping. But I do wish that (knowing when one should be) flapping becomes an important part of playing Lerk, rather than "flap every 1-2 seconds to maintain speed".
My biggest qualm about welders is that they still cost money in a significant enough amount to dent your ability to buy things later on. The newbie/average pub player in a pub game will die maybe 5-8 times on a good day, I just made that up but the point is this: that's 20-36 pres gone if they had to buy a welder every time. It's just flat out not worth it. Not when buying a shotgun or two could improve my own ability to survive. Tack on a teamplayer pack of mines and you're out of luck later in the game when you need to grab that jetpack and shotty.
Maybe if welders cost 1 pres I'd be alright with it.
They must be some pretty good newbies to only die 5-8 times in a game.
Most newbies I see die more like 20-30 times, welder costs is high...but you can pick up dropped ones so I am not sure that we need to have their cost dropped.
If anything perhaps a straight out 20 res purchase that permanently swaps your axe for a welder (that cant be picked up when you die) could work.
welders shouldn't be a basic requirement for a marine team to be functional, but about boosting efficiency. armor repair has nothing to do with that. besides, players will more than likely go back to the armory for health anyway as pub comms arent always the biggest medders... noone denies that more welding would be better, but there are better ways to do it, really.
Don't even bother, you are wasting your time posting in these threads using day to day NS2 experience in an argument about armouries not repairing armour as bad. You see there was this mod 10 years ago called Natural Selection 1 that had armouries that didn't repair armour and that's the entire basis we're going to work off here.
What about the dozens of hours people have spent playing the mod where the whole welding thing works out perfectly fine even though the BT server is constantly full of new players? Go post your baseless angry crap somewhere else.
Don't even bother, you are wasting your time posting in these threads using day to day NS2 experience in an argument about armouries not repairing armour as bad. You see there was this mod 10 years ago called Natural Selection 1 that had armouries that didn't repair armour and that's the entire basis we're going to work off here.
What about the dozens of hours people have spent playing the mod where the whole welding thing works out perfectly fine even though the BT server is constantly full of new players? Go post your baseless angry crap somewhere else.
Don't even bother, you are wasting your time posting in these threads using day to day NS2 experience in an argument about armouries not repairing armour as bad. You see there was this mod 10 years ago called Natural Selection 1 that had armouries that didn't repair armour and that's the entire basis we're going to work off here.
What about the dozens of hours people have spent playing the mod where the whole welding thing works out perfectly fine even though the BT server is constantly full of new players? Go post your baseless angry crap somewhere else.
Thanks as well. I love reading Xao posts. I wish he posted more dude is hilarious.
Oh and to keep it on topic. Anyone else bumping into things too much with the jetpack? Seems it has a big punch for going upward though it is better than vanilla.
I don't see how bad disorganized marines are suddenly going to replace safe defensive play with effective and coordinated attacks
the only thing the armory change does is make alien assaults on fortified locations easier since a lone marine is less powerful and 1 marine with a welder out is 1 less marine shooting things
making it harder to defend a position just means more people will be needed to defend
and the increased spawn times make that worse
You may be out of touch with public play, but the style is always moving in the direction of minimizing risk
for marines, it isn't about winning as much as it is about not losing
the competitive style of aggression doesn't work in pubs because the risk reward equations are completely different
marines just take longer to do everything
the reward of an attack is lower:
they attack slower so they do less damage before aliens react
they med less (more players, slower reactions, worse medpack aim) which means more marines are dying
pro aiming vs pub aiming is a much bigger gap than pro biting vs pub biting
they have fewer upgrades because fast phasegates was necessary (because of similar risk/reward analysis)
they are less likely to have welders because they are saving for exos
it's harder to keep tabs on the enemy (less scanning, less identification of individual enemy players and lifeforms and locations)
the risk of "leaving the base" is higher:
aliens need to bite structures (power node / phase gate)... pro players and pub players do this at the same rate once they start biting
the comm reacts slower which makes beacons late
marines cannot recover as easily after they lose a room... taking it back requires the same skills as a "rewarding attack"
I think you should be able to repair marine armor without a welder. Just walk up to the marine and press E, and it would pull out the regular "builder-gun". The draw-back being it welds slower obviously. That should crush any of the "my teammate won't buy a welder"-fears.
Maybe even a feature that allowed you to use this gun on your self, so it allows a marine to solo defend rt's etc. Only problem I see about that, is it removes the need for early armor 1 to counter parasites, since you only need to weld yourself 1 armor point.
Having to weld teammates sounds boring. Time welding is time not spent shooting or covering ground. On top of that, its a 5 pres investment in OTHER players. Why should I spend time and pres on teammates when I'm playing this game to have fun?
You all dismiss any notion that "selfish" players should be accounted for in ns2. It's taken to the extreme in that mechanics that force you to perform an action for your team are automatically regarded as good changes, no matter how much they pull you away from the fun parts of the game.
Yes, these may be good changes for comp where every player is dedicated to winning, but that is an unrealistic expectation for pub players. Why would I perform an unfun task just for the sense of accomplishment? I have school and work (and competitive videogames) for that. When I pub ns2 I want to shoot aliens.
If there is really a problem of balance here, the mechanic AT LEAST should be reworked. Maybe a 5 pres investment for passive armor regen would be more fun. Idk.
What about the dozens of hours people have spent playing the mod where the whole welding thing works out perfectly fine even though the BT server is constantly full of new players? Go post your baseless angry crap somewhere else.
Welders are without a doubt the most cost effective item in the game currently. I think players can't underestimate just how powerful marine armor is. Not only does it give at least give you at least extra 0.6 sec of survival, it also gives the commander much more time to drop medpacks on you. During the 0.6 sec(per armor upgrade) you have chance to dodge or be saved by a covering ally. If you have a shotgun you get a extra shot or might be able to fire your pistol clip. Having full armor constantly without any res cost is simply insane, even in bt I would say 5tres macs are to powerful with their free welding.
Free armor just rewards defensive play way to much. Marines should be out there fighting, not standing next to armories all game(like happens to often in vanilla). Also both teams now have more mechanics where teamplay makes them much much stronger. Aliens can combine their strength with lerk umbra + gorge forward healing with skulk/fades while marines get use welders. If one team uses these mechanics to their advantage and the other don't then there is high chance they will simply lose, rewarding teamwork.
As the players get better you will see more players use welders. Its ok that new players don't weld each other because the aliens won't be working as well together as well. As players get better they start to support their teammates better. In the end you will see more veteran players use these mechanics because they want to win games. Rewarding teamwork should be a good thing. We can already see more players use welders in the BT, so that should give a nice hint for the future.
No one is doubting the theorycraft that this is some great mechanic that will unite the entire TSF in chain locked arms, welders poised on quickswitch just waiting to clear the next room out while carefully re welding/bombing up before pushing the next objective.
No one to date argues that in theory, in magic land where people help others in public NS 2 this wouldn't be a good addition.
But it won't happen, it hasn't happened in any pub NS server outside of clan players doing it amongst themselves, the only people I've seen in 800+ hours played taking welders on a push or asking for them are clan players or people associated with pugs/gathers. It simply hasn't caught on in the first 6 months, so why would punishing marines by making armouries next to worthless somehow encourage something that's already perfectly viable now and will certainly elevate you above average pub crapper that no one bothers with...MUH NS 1 ofc.
So the next point that giving armour on armouries encourages marine defensive play? Am I fucking high? The only reason why I see marines consistently push out of areas is because of offensive armouries being dropped in rooms of 4-5 marines so they can bomb up and push out, typically dropped at tech nodes near phase gates in which is under constant pressure or the rooms leading to are filled with skulks. And even if it did encourage defensive plays, I can't go 2 rounds of NS2 without seeing marines lose a PG with an armoury near it, well fuck me if I'm wrong but shouldn't it be statistically impossible to lose to any alien within 5foot of an armoury? That's the feedback I'm getting in BT mod threads, in fact if marine comms just armoury rushed like terran can bunker rush marines would be on 91% win rates vs zerg.
I'll re iterate the last time marines relied on the commander or their team to do the right thing, pre nerf 100% invisibility camo, we had threads whinging for fucking days because people couldn't rely on 3 marines in a room to cover the 1 building or comms to drop scans, the tears were endless, plenty of people I see shit posting in these BT mod threads were the same rage quitting out of servers "omfg noob aliens camo gg comms shit no scanz". Yet lets go backwards in game mechanics and force every single player on the fucking team to rely on the next one to not only make constant pres expenditures of welders, because you know marines late game just piss out never ending tres/pres JP/SG drops, but to also know when where and the why of using them.
I bet if I put my fingers up my arse and made a kill on a skulk it would feel really good because I had the additional burden of digits in my sphincter while making them, playing on handicaps feels fucking great, roll out the BT mod.
Just hotfix armouries not healing armour into live right now, no point in making threads or posts about it I'm sure halfofheaven and MF are right with their thousands of hours played in NS 1 that invalidate everyone elses hours played, the plebeians know not what they want and they'll do what they're told and enjoy what they're told to enjoy if they know what's good for them.
If welders were a heal beam that would lock on to teammates (and thus viable for use in direct combat), welding wouldnt be so bad. But that would change too many things, i think.
Having to weld teammates sounds boring. Time welding is time not spent shooting or covering ground. On top of that, its a 5 pres investment in OTHER players. Why should I spend time and pres on teammates when I'm playing this game to have fun?
You all dismiss any notion that "selfish" players should be accounted for in ns2. It's taken to the extreme in that mechanics that force you to perform an action for your team are automatically regarded as good changes, no matter how much they pull you away from the fun parts of the game.
Yes, these may be good changes for comp where every player is dedicated to winning, but that is an unrealistic expectation for pub players. Why would I perform an unfun task just for the sense of accomplishment? I have school and work (and competitive videogames) for that. When I pub ns2 I want to shoot aliens.
If there is really a problem of balance here, the mechanic AT LEAST should be reworked. Maybe a 5 pres investment for passive armor regen would be more fun. Idk.
Welding teammates is fun if you're a team player. If you're not you should play the Combat mod.
The armor healing is really not that big of an issue. It's still fully possible to armor heal in the mid/late game all by yourself because at this point the marine team will usually have MACs on the field which are incredibly good. So to me armor healing does still seem to be in the game, it has just been pushed into the robo tech tree. From my personal experience in playing the mod it has actually made marine field play and pushes stronger, because before not that many people bought welders on pub. Now field welding is a regular occurrence and it can be pretty strong. (Marines do not need free welders, this would cause further balance issues.)
As Grissi has said anyone who has doubts about this should really make an effort to play the mod and experience the implications of the change first hand. I was very against the removal of armory armor healing when they tried it in the beta, however the bt mod has a wide array of changes that properly support it's implementation and (to me) it feels like a positive change now.
Also both teams now have more mechanics where teamplay makes them much much stronger. Aliens can combine their strength with lerk umbra + gorge forward healing with skulk/fades while marines get use welders. If one team uses these mechanics to their advantage and the other don't then there is high chance they will simply lose, rewarding teamwork.
I dont have an opinion on the armory situation, unless its not intuitively implemented. But..
A) You say "Now" like its a new thing, but we were able to weld armor with welders just the same, previously, with the same effectiveness. But getting ammo restored as well as health was still a large motivator and continues to be so even in BT games - so making this change to prevent the armory humping situation seems short sighted considering it still occurs - albiet with slightly less effectiveness..
You attempt to draw the homogeneous similarities in armor restoration between the teams.. but in reality "Now" the the mobile team can have their armor restored by 1) Gorges 2) Crags 3) Hives - all reachable within seconds typically and visibly identifiable on their map - but the slow team only gets their armor restored by 1) Team mates 2) MACs which are entirely a poor substitute and contribute nothing to "rewarding teamwork".
So if you really want to make the point of equal access to armor restoration and rewarding player teamwork then you gotta axe one, maybe the crag should only heal health?
My biggest qualm about welders is that they still cost money in a significant enough amount to dent your ability to buy things later on. The newbie/average pub player in a pub game will die maybe 5-8 times on a good day, I just made that up but the point is this: that's 20-36 pres gone if they had to buy a welder every time.
Sewlek has stated in prior internal discussions that because "no pres while dead" was removed, that the cost of the welder is somewhat alleviated and thus a price reduction isn't needed.
In fact, it is just a direct economical nerf to change such game design with no regards to the financial impact it has - IMO. @Scardybob did the leg work back in March to support my argument, enjoy :-P
And regarding D) can't remember the exact numbers, but wouldn't no pres while dead, with the most amount of extractors (very rare alien turtle) only lead to 3 pres because of static marine spawn rate? That number is probably inaccurate but there is a way to determine minimum, maximum, and average pres loss previously. Does it equate to the cost of a welder?
Default values are 0.125PRes/6s and marine spawn time of 7s, so doing permutations on those values for different RT counts:
Or alternatively, we can find the spawn time or PRes flow necessary to get 5PRes during one spawn:
- For 0.125PRes/s = 240s spawn time
- For 0.25PRes/s = 120s spawn time
- For 7s spawn time = 4.3PRes/6s
- For 14s spawn time = 2.14PRes/6s
Moral of the story is that unless welders cost 1PRes, marines won't be able to recoup their cost while waiting to respawn.
Welding teammates is fun if you're a team player. If you're not you should play the Combat mod.
Ah come on fun varies from person to person. I do not find welding thrilling even though others might. And I accept both opinions but you do not have to forced to weld in order to be called a team player. Right now you can both weld and have an armory to fall back on so people have a choice. Take it away and you are just forcing a pres sink on welders.
It's important to understand the reasons why some players are hesitant about buying welders, assuming they aren't just completely selfish. I think the biggest reason is that people don't trust their pub teammates to buy welders and weld them, and don't want to feel like a sucker being the only one who contributes. I suggested earlier that owning a welder should give you a very slow passive armor regen, similar to the upgrade that was in for a little while. That way there is some personal value to buying a welder even if nobody on your team reciprocates, and you have the means to eventually get your armor back if you stay alive for a while.
It's important to understand the reasons why some players are hesitant about buying welders, assuming they aren't just completely selfish. I think the biggest reason is that people don't trust their pub teammates to buy welders and weld them, and don't want to feel like a sucker being the only one who contributes. I suggested earlier that owning a welder should give you a very slow passive armor regen, similar to the upgrade that was in for a little while. That way there is some personal value to buying a welder even if nobody on your team reciprocates, and you have the means to eventually get your armor back if you stay alive for a while.
Well that is pretty spot on with my reasoning and when I did play the BT mod that is exactly what happened unless there were a large number of experienced players on the server. There were so many ideas similar to yours posted in the old armory thread but nothing came of it. Which is why I want to see the direction the mod takes since it is not finalized. Personally I wanted a cheaper welder around 1 pres with the ability to self weld. So at least if people did not get welders you always had the opportunity to weld yourself instead of relying on other random players completely. If the game was full of people who knew what they were doing it would not be an issue but even today people horde pres for exos so this is not exactly looking hopeful.
It's important to understand the reasons why some players are hesitant about buying welders, assuming they aren't just completely selfish. I think the biggest reason is that people don't trust their pub teammates to buy welders and weld them, and don't want to feel like a sucker being the only one who contributes. I suggested earlier that owning a welder should give you a very slow passive armor regen, similar to the upgrade that was in for a little while. That way there is some personal value to buying a welder even if nobody on your team reciprocates, and you have the means to eventually get your armor back if you stay alive for a while.
Well that is pretty spot on with my reasoning and when I did play the BT mod that is exactly what happened unless there were a large number of experienced players on the server. There were so many ideas similar to yours posted in the old armory thread but nothing came of it. Which is why I want to see the direction the mod takes since it is not finalized. Personally I wanted a cheaper welder around 1 pres with the ability to self weld. So at least if people did not get welders you always had the opportunity to weld yourself instead of relying on other random players completely. If the game was full of people who knew what they were doing it would not be an issue but even today people horde pres for exos so this is not exactly looking hopeful.
What you're asking for completely undermines the system though. There is going to be a certain level of dependency on your teammates, that's where teamwork comes from. If your teammates are all hopeless and won't try to work together then the game isn't fun, that's how it is today anyway. To remove the teamwork requirement from the game is to neuter everything that makes it unique. If you'd rather have a fun action experience that isn't dependent on anyone, that's what Combat is for.
What you're asking for completely undermines the system though. There is going to be a certain level of dependency on your teammates, that's where teamwork comes from. If your teammates are all hopeless and won't try to work together then the game isn't fun, that's how it is today anyway. To remove the teamwork requirement from the game is to neuter everything that makes it unique. If you'd rather have a fun action experience that isn't dependent on anyone, that's what Combat is for.
I prefer vanilla to combat though. Since you say it undermines teamwork then lets remove the self weld. Even without self welding 4 pres is steep unless you expect people not to die at all in public games. Not really enjoyable pouring pres into welders every time you die as there is a chance you cannot recover it every single time. Other than that we just have different opinions on what is fun.
Comments
Yes, when you die the enemy gets a little stronger. That's right, but it doesn't matter. Overall, on combat servers, people don't care if a teammate dies. Because most people don't play combat for the teamplay experience. That's not what this mod is good for. It's for constant fragging action, levelling up, practicing your aim/lifeform. It's much more likely to see some form of teamplay happening on vanilla pub servers, than it's likely so see teamplay on combat servers. I've played both plenty to tell the difference, I assure you. In any case, I didn't miss your point, I was trying to explain why your example is ill-fitted to prove your point.
You simply can not hold up a mod that has put so much focus on the individual to try and illustrate a lack of teamplay inherent to the game, when vanilla NS2 actually plays out so much different. It's like claiming a playerbase of any game lacks the capacity for teamplay by using an unofficial deathmatch game mode as an example. People play differently depending on the game mode. And people weld more often on bt servers than on combat servers.
You should play the BT mod some more than just the 15 min.
Maybe if welders cost 1 pres I'd be alright with it.
Virsoul brought up an idea on the stream that I think is definitely worth looking into. If welding is a neccesity now to keep marines alive, make marines start with some capability to weld eachother. I like the idea of having "E to repair" things but at a slower rate than a welder would do. Then have welders researchable at the armory. Personally, I don't mind the idea of removing the axe and just starting with a welder.
Also, I see no reason for AAs to not repair armor. Sure sure, discouraging turtles. But in all reality, the new system does nothing of the sort, people will just weld each other in a turtle now. Some people just like to turtle (there's an entire mod about it!).
Also to everyone saying "play the BT mod!" Every time I've played it A: I've had to put up with 170 ping to the only german server that actually has enough people to consistently play on it. and B: I've always played mostly silent games full of people on both radical ends of the spectrum (pub to comp) who are still just testing the waters. I'd LOVE to play an actual game of BT with people who are all my skill level (pub decent). Thing is, that just isn't happening. Also: stop stacking teams on the only BT server with people on it.
Don't even bother, you are wasting your time posting in these threads using day to day NS2 experience in an argument about armouries not repairing armour as bad. You see there was this mod 10 years ago called Natural Selection 1 that had armouries that didn't repair armour and that's the entire basis we're going to work off here.
You can't look in the AMX forum for natural selection without scrolling past multiple self weld/multiple weld mods but ignore that, this change will be good.
Was noted that lots of people in NS1 without armour/parasited used to suicide off multiple areas or rambo deep and draw in multiple skulks or typed kill commands, ignore that.
There's been 0 competitive matches in which marines camping an armoury pulled off a win against a superior sized alien force, ignore that, this change will be good.
Can't play a single round on marines with exos out without someone whinging no one is welding their 50-75 pres investment, ignore that too, this change will be good.
Game modes within natural selection (co) already reward people for welding and put a high risk/reward on deaths/kills yet people rarely buy a welder, keep the blinkers on because this change will be good.
What's even better is that half the "competitive" morons posting here will be equally afflicted, nearly every comp player is Aus would rage quit out of servers if aliens were using camo because they "relied too heavily on comm not being shit to scan when I told them" and here they are pushing a team wide nerf onto marines that will result in them either 1) waiting around for welds repeatedly or 2) losing their pres SG/JP and inevitably 3) rage quitting and complaining that pubs are shit and have nfi what to do and why isn't there any pug/gather going.
Oh wait we already have 3 enough as it is, put more fuel on that fire will do it some good.
Where do you think we are...
They basically do. Those 4 pres are definitely worth their money and you take a Welder with you right before you leave the base for the first time.
I'm not blind to problems that newbies face. I'm saying that if the armorless newbie is somehow meaningless on the field, we have to make him have more meaningful things to do without the armor rather than making him suddenly replenenish his armor. I'd like to think it's more fun to the newbie also as he can try to push into alien territory, explore the map and feel like he's participating in the RTS action rather than him being confined to the close proximity of armory support all round long.
There's a limit on all this though. If someone wants to pubstomp, it's going to happen regardless of whether there's an armory healing the newbie's armor or not. You can't expect a skill based FPS to put a seasoned veteran and a newbie on the same server and expect any kind of even match. If pubstomping is considered to be too much of a problem, it has to be dealt with something else than promoting armory hugging that makes the marine turtling even easier and likely results in prolonged uneven rounds.
Free armor just rewards defensive play way to much. Marines should be out there fighting, not standing next to armories all game(like happens to often in vanilla). Also both teams now have more mechanics where teamplay makes them much much stronger. Aliens can combine their strength with lerk umbra + gorge forward healing with skulk/fades while marines get use welders. If one team uses these mechanics to their advantage and the other don't then there is high chance they will simply lose, rewarding teamwork.
As the players get better you will see more players use welders. Its ok that new players don't weld each other because the aliens won't be working as well together as well. As players get better they start to support their teammates better. In the end you will see more veteran players use these mechanics because they want to win games. Rewarding teamwork should be a good thing. We can already see more players use welders in the BT, so that should give a nice hint for the future.
Gorge has Gorge-hop. :P
You can use the simple combination of bellyslide and jump (shift + jump), then maintain speed by hopping. You can easily travel with speeds of around 6-7 without celerity.
Lerk does feel rather odd without downward gravity while gliding. On the other hand, I welcome the air acceleration lerks now gain without flapping. But I do wish that (knowing when one should be) flapping becomes an important part of playing Lerk, rather than "flap every 1-2 seconds to maintain speed".
Most newbies I see die more like 20-30 times, welder costs is high...but you can pick up dropped ones so I am not sure that we need to have their cost dropped.
If anything perhaps a straight out 20 res purchase that permanently swaps your axe for a welder (that cant be picked up when you die) could work.
http://www.ausns2.org has all your Xao needs covered.
Thanks as well. I love reading Xao posts. I wish he posted more dude is hilarious.
Oh and to keep it on topic. Anyone else bumping into things too much with the jetpack? Seems it has a big punch for going upward though it is better than vanilla.
I don't see how bad disorganized marines are suddenly going to replace safe defensive play with effective and coordinated attacks
the only thing the armory change does is make alien assaults on fortified locations easier since a lone marine is less powerful and 1 marine with a welder out is 1 less marine shooting things
making it harder to defend a position just means more people will be needed to defend
and the increased spawn times make that worse
You may be out of touch with public play, but the style is always moving in the direction of minimizing risk
for marines, it isn't about winning as much as it is about not losing
the competitive style of aggression doesn't work in pubs because the risk reward equations are completely different
marines just take longer to do everything
the reward of an attack is lower:
they attack slower so they do less damage before aliens react
they med less (more players, slower reactions, worse medpack aim) which means more marines are dying
pro aiming vs pub aiming is a much bigger gap than pro biting vs pub biting
they have fewer upgrades because fast phasegates was necessary (because of similar risk/reward analysis)
they are less likely to have welders because they are saving for exos
it's harder to keep tabs on the enemy (less scanning, less identification of individual enemy players and lifeforms and locations)
the risk of "leaving the base" is higher:
aliens need to bite structures (power node / phase gate)... pro players and pub players do this at the same rate once they start biting
the comm reacts slower which makes beacons late
marines cannot recover as easily after they lose a room... taking it back requires the same skills as a "rewarding attack"
Congrats Sewlek, you appear to be doing a nice job on this.
Maybe even a feature that allowed you to use this gun on your self, so it allows a marine to solo defend rt's etc. Only problem I see about that, is it removes the need for early armor 1 to counter parasites, since you only need to weld yourself 1 armor point.
You all dismiss any notion that "selfish" players should be accounted for in ns2. It's taken to the extreme in that mechanics that force you to perform an action for your team are automatically regarded as good changes, no matter how much they pull you away from the fun parts of the game.
Yes, these may be good changes for comp where every player is dedicated to winning, but that is an unrealistic expectation for pub players. Why would I perform an unfun task just for the sense of accomplishment? I have school and work (and competitive videogames) for that. When I pub ns2 I want to shoot aliens.
If there is really a problem of balance here, the mechanic AT LEAST should be reworked. Maybe a 5 pres investment for passive armor regen would be more fun. Idk.
2/10.
No one is doubting the theorycraft that this is some great mechanic that will unite the entire TSF in chain locked arms, welders poised on quickswitch just waiting to clear the next room out while carefully re welding/bombing up before pushing the next objective.
No one to date argues that in theory, in magic land where people help others in public NS 2 this wouldn't be a good addition.
But it won't happen, it hasn't happened in any pub NS server outside of clan players doing it amongst themselves, the only people I've seen in 800+ hours played taking welders on a push or asking for them are clan players or people associated with pugs/gathers. It simply hasn't caught on in the first 6 months, so why would punishing marines by making armouries next to worthless somehow encourage something that's already perfectly viable now and will certainly elevate you above average pub crapper that no one bothers with...MUH NS 1 ofc.
So the next point that giving armour on armouries encourages marine defensive play? Am I fucking high? The only reason why I see marines consistently push out of areas is because of offensive armouries being dropped in rooms of 4-5 marines so they can bomb up and push out, typically dropped at tech nodes near phase gates in which is under constant pressure or the rooms leading to are filled with skulks. And even if it did encourage defensive plays, I can't go 2 rounds of NS2 without seeing marines lose a PG with an armoury near it, well fuck me if I'm wrong but shouldn't it be statistically impossible to lose to any alien within 5foot of an armoury? That's the feedback I'm getting in BT mod threads, in fact if marine comms just armoury rushed like terran can bunker rush marines would be on 91% win rates vs zerg.
I'll re iterate the last time marines relied on the commander or their team to do the right thing, pre nerf 100% invisibility camo, we had threads whinging for fucking days because people couldn't rely on 3 marines in a room to cover the 1 building or comms to drop scans, the tears were endless, plenty of people I see shit posting in these BT mod threads were the same rage quitting out of servers "omfg noob aliens camo gg comms shit no scanz". Yet lets go backwards in game mechanics and force every single player on the fucking team to rely on the next one to not only make constant pres expenditures of welders, because you know marines late game just piss out never ending tres/pres JP/SG drops, but to also know when where and the why of using them.
I bet if I put my fingers up my arse and made a kill on a skulk it would feel really good because I had the additional burden of digits in my sphincter while making them, playing on handicaps feels fucking great, roll out the BT mod.
Just hotfix armouries not healing armour into live right now, no point in making threads or posts about it I'm sure halfofheaven and MF are right with their thousands of hours played in NS 1 that invalidate everyone elses hours played, the plebeians know not what they want and they'll do what they're told and enjoy what they're told to enjoy if they know what's good for them.
Welding teammates is fun if you're a team player. If you're not you should play the Combat mod.
As Grissi has said anyone who has doubts about this should really make an effort to play the mod and experience the implications of the change first hand. I was very against the removal of armory armor healing when they tried it in the beta, however the bt mod has a wide array of changes that properly support it's implementation and (to me) it feels like a positive change now.
A) You say "Now" like its a new thing, but we were able to weld armor with welders just the same, previously, with the same effectiveness. But getting ammo restored as well as health was still a large motivator and continues to be so even in BT games - so making this change to prevent the armory humping situation seems short sighted considering it still occurs - albiet with slightly less effectiveness..
So if you really want to make the point of equal access to armor restoration and rewarding player teamwork then you gotta axe one, maybe the crag should only heal health?
Sewlek has stated in prior internal discussions that because "no pres while dead" was removed, that the cost of the welder is somewhat alleviated and thus a price reduction isn't needed.
In fact, it is just a direct economical nerf to change such game design with no regards to the financial impact it has - IMO.
@Scardybob did the leg work back in March to support my argument, enjoy :-P
Ah come on fun varies from person to person. I do not find welding thrilling even though others might. And I accept both opinions but you do not have to forced to weld in order to be called a team player. Right now you can both weld and have an armory to fall back on so people have a choice. Take it away and you are just forcing a pres sink on welders.
Well that is pretty spot on with my reasoning and when I did play the BT mod that is exactly what happened unless there were a large number of experienced players on the server. There were so many ideas similar to yours posted in the old armory thread but nothing came of it. Which is why I want to see the direction the mod takes since it is not finalized. Personally I wanted a cheaper welder around 1 pres with the ability to self weld. So at least if people did not get welders you always had the opportunity to weld yourself instead of relying on other random players completely. If the game was full of people who knew what they were doing it would not be an issue but even today people horde pres for exos so this is not exactly looking hopeful.
What you're asking for completely undermines the system though. There is going to be a certain level of dependency on your teammates, that's where teamwork comes from. If your teammates are all hopeless and won't try to work together then the game isn't fun, that's how it is today anyway. To remove the teamwork requirement from the game is to neuter everything that makes it unique. If you'd rather have a fun action experience that isn't dependent on anyone, that's what Combat is for.
I prefer vanilla to combat though. Since you say it undermines teamwork then lets remove the self weld. Even without self welding 4 pres is steep unless you expect people not to die at all in public games. Not really enjoyable pouring pres into welders every time you die as there is a chance you cannot recover it every single time. Other than that we just have different opinions on what is fun.