This may just be me, but i feel like teamwork should be reserved for making plays, and carrying out strategies. Not as a bottleneck for the action.
If there's no teamwork in the mundane "day to day" stuff, then how do you expect people to suddenly pull together and coordinate something big? It doesn't work, the fact that people think pub players can't even handle something simple like this is proof that the current game doesn't foster teamwork very well.
From what I have played of the BT mod the requirement for welders is more than offset by their cheap cost, re-usability and extreme usefulness in the field. Also people seem to have caught on to their usefulness and most pushes and fights have a welder or two among the marines.
As for whoever was ranting about the lack of welding in combat servers, apples and oranges. I know that i sure as hell dont play combat to run around welding my fool teammates who try their best to juke me as I do so. I play combat for the COMBAT!
I seriously don't know why this is even an issue. If nobody on your team welds you, you can still ask the commander to assign a MAC to your Armory and thus basically upgrade it to armor repair. If the comm doesn't do anything despite being aware that the team is not using any Welders, then the match is probably lost anyway and I wouldn't bother anymore.
Yes, when you die the enemy gets a little stronger. That's right, but it doesn't matter.
How does directly giving XP to your opponents to tech and then kill you easier not matter? That's kind of like saying dying and letting them take an RT position doesn't matter in a regular game. Fundamentally, it's the same thing.
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.
*sigh*
You competitive players really are completely detached from the rest of the game. To take down chairs requires teamwork. Marines may not require as much to kill a hive, but Aliens do need it for chair destruction. And the whole Spore-Xenocide combination is effectively OP. A skulk and lerk working together can annihilate a marine team by themselves. Don't even give me that bull**** that there isn't teamwork. Welding is absolutely vital in Combat and relatively few people do it. It's essentially just veteran players who know better. Your #1 problem here is you are assuming that everyone has the same competitive attitude as you.
Furthermore, once an Onos comes out, you need the Exo. And without welding, you're just Onos Fodder (on most maps). And as I pointed out, the welder earns you XP to tech up. But people still don't do it. You never addressed this point. I don't think you ever will. Welding helps them get XP and keeps alive units they need. The guy with the scanner that prevents ambushes? Helps to keep that guy alive. The guy with the flamethrower to stop spore? Helps to keep them alive too. If people cannot even recognize that their success in Combat actually lies with their team, it's bat**** crazy to believe that non-compeitive players will actually do what you are saying in a BT turned vanilla.
You should play the BT mod some more than just the 15 min.
Couldn't stand it. The Marine team I was on was getting annihilated without armor repair with no glance bites. We didn't even get to next tier level. I can see how once you tech up Marines have some advantages, but on a pub server where many of the marines are new, it's not even remotely balanced. Skulk stomp fest. That alone is going to ensure that many new players badmouth the game to their friends. The game's population is already pathetic. I can totally see this game fading into irrelevance. NS2 cannot even break the top 100 games played on Steam. This game needs new players and focusing on the desires of the competitive to the point where it's giving everyone else the middle finger is not the way to do it.
Right now the game has a chance to gather new players. Focusing on the desires of the competitive players is not the way to do it.
Honestly, this looks like a gaming version of the Windows 8 fiasco.
If servers want to the run the mod that's fine. Just don't force it as mandatory. Consumers, especially new ones tend to dislike having little choice.
Welding teammates is fun if you're a team player. If you're not you should play the Combat mod.
People who don't weld in Combat results in faster alien tech and spectacularly useful xenocides (as in 4+ kills). Combat sucks when you're being Xenocided every 15 seconds (it is hilarious though on the alien side). But that's tends to happen to marine teams that don't work together and don't weld.
Basically, the mac is a very poor substitute for a multitude of reasons (that i list).. So no offense but i don't see that argument as being a valid one.
Its awkward at best, and further undermines any encouragement of team work - supposedly the biggest benefit of this welder change. (if not, then there are far simpler and more elegant approaches if frequency of armor regeneration was the only issue) and worst of all is that MACs are at the decision, discretion and whim of one person who is fiscally conservative and is not yourself.
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
You play with some bad ass noobs then. I kill certain people way more than 5 times. And if my team is awful and we're getting the Fade Train Full Court Press, I get killed way more than 8 times.
If there's no teamwork in the mundane "day to day" stuff, then how do you expect people to suddenly pull together and coordinate something big? It doesn't work, the fact that people think pub players can't even handle something simple like this is proof that the current game doesn't foster teamwork very well.
I dont think they wont do it, i just dont want to be spending all my time welding and building structures.
Plus, this isnt teamwork in the way that people enjoy. It's just creating an road block that your team mate needs to perform for you.
FUN teamwork is coordinating with the skulk across the room when to jump into a group of marines. Or beaconing back to make an full push into an enemy hive. Calling both those things teamwork cheapens the word.
I dont mind your idea of giving yourself a passive armor regen if you have a welder though. Sounds like a decent middleground.
Plus, this isnt teamwork in the way that people enjoy. It's just creating an road block that your team mate needs to perform for you.
I made much the same point some time ago when this last became a contentious issue. I called it "fake teamwork".
Fake teamwork still feels like teamwork, though, so hopefully a) it will be fun for most people who like teamwork (and if someone doesn't like teamwork they're playing the wrong game) and b) it will get more people into the "teamworky" mindset and thus facilitate more and better real teamwork. That's my hope, anyway, since it looks like this change is making it into vanilla for sure.
Think of it less like a tactically brilliant play in football and more like the team cheering and congratulating each other after scoring a goal. "Teambuilding" rather than "teamwork". Maybe that'll be a good thing for the game after all.
One thing that I notice with people arguing against the welder change is that they seem to think that every marine needs a welder ever life. The comment about it severely cutting into the marine's pres is an example.
You don't need for every marine to have a welder every life. In a push, 1 welder for every 2-3 marines is more than enough.
Does everyone know that pushes with welders is overpowered, there's one reason why a Marine push fails and that's the armory, people keep running back either getting themselves killed or their teammate, because leaving them be-hide, but with welders the pressure just keeps up, aliens just can not pick off the weak one, obviously the Alien side has the hive, but only the marines with med and weld support can sustain such a strong push.
I think once people see the benefit of it, they won't looks back.
Teamwork, well this game should push it unashamedly, basically sticking to it's guns, it's the only reason I play, any other direction and this would be a crappy FPS/RTS because both are lacking, but the teamwork is it's shining point.
It's shouldn't pander to the "rambo" like people, like it has sometimes, by removing some needs of teamplay.
ramps/stairs need some kind of fix/hack. its really annoying to lose all your momentum as skulk/fade because of them.
THere is a trick to it...
Zip-zag up the ramp, at each point/zig try and do a walljump. That way you can maintain your speed, if you just try and go straight up it you'll stuff up the timing on the jump queue and slow down.
ramps/stairs need some kind of fix/hack. its really annoying to lose all your momentum as skulk/fade because of them.
THere is a trick to it...
Zip-zag up the ramp, at each point/zig try and do a walljump. That way you can maintain your speed, if you just try and go straight up it you'll stuff up the timing on the jump queue and slow down.
Timing isn't the problem, you lose almost all your speed even if you jump. Stairs and slopes aren't a huge issue because you can learn to work around them but uneven terrain definitely is. Sometimes you land on an small edge or seam in the floor and lose all your speed.
Yes, when you die the enemy gets a little stronger. That's right, but it doesn't matter.
How does directly giving XP to your opponents to tech and then kill you easier not matter? That's kind of like saying dying and letting them take an RT position doesn't matter in a regular game. Fundamentally, it's the same thing.
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.
*sigh*
You competitive players really are completely detached from the rest of the game. To take down chairs requires teamwork. Marines may not require as much to kill a hive, but Aliens do need it for chair destruction. And the whole Spore-Xenocide combination is effectively OP. A skulk and lerk working together can annihilate a marine team by themselves. Don't even give me that bull**** that there isn't teamwork. Welding is absolutely vital in Combat and relatively few people do it. It's essentially just veteran players who know better. Your #1 problem here is you are assuming that everyone has the same competitive attitude as you.
Furthermore, once an Onos comes out, you need the Exo. And without welding, you're just Onos Fodder (on most maps). And as I pointed out, the welder earns you XP to tech up. But people still don't do it. You never addressed this point. I don't think you ever will. Welding helps them get XP and keeps alive units they need. The guy with the scanner that prevents ambushes? Helps to keep that guy alive. The guy with the flamethrower to stop spore? Helps to keep them alive too. If people cannot even recognize that their success in Combat actually lies with their team, it's bat**** crazy to believe that non-compeitive players will actually do what you are saying in a BT turned vanilla.
You should play the BT mod some more than just the 15 min.
Couldn't stand it. The Marine team I was on was getting annihilated without armor repair with no glance bites. We didn't even get to next tier level. I can see how once you tech up Marines have some advantages, but on a pub server where many of the marines are new, it's not even remotely balanced. Skulk stomp fest. That alone is going to ensure that many new players badmouth the game to their friends. The game's population is already pathetic. I can totally see this game fading into irrelevance. NS2 cannot even break the top 100 games played on Steam. This game needs new players and focusing on the desires of the competitive to the point where it's giving everyone else the middle finger is not the way to do it.
Right now the game has a chance to gather new players. Focusing on the desires of the competitive players is not the way to do it.
Honestly, this looks like a gaming version of the Windows 8 fiasco.
If servers want to the run the mod that's fine. Just don't force it as mandatory. Consumers, especially new ones tend to dislike having little choice.
Let's recap for a moment. You were saying you don't see people weld up each other in combat, and concluded from this that people won't do so in vanilla, ignoring the fact that people do weld each other all the time on BT servers already.
I have been trying to explain why people are less prone to weld each other on combat servers in comparison to vanilla/bt, and why combat server are thus not representative for the NS2 playerbase's potential for teamplay, referring to the inherently different nature/mindset of the combat mod. If you can't aknowledge that there is a big difference difference between combat and vanilla on the subject of teamwork, nor acknowledge that in bt mod it's hardly a problem to get your armor repaired, there's little point of further discussion.
Also, you keep claiming that the removal of glancing bites has somehow shifted balance into alien favor dramatically, yet it's easier to miss a bite now and get 0 damage while you maybe would have gotten 25 damage before. Maybe Sewlek, if he's reading this, could comment on the bite cone changes to clarify a bit? In any case, it hasn't felt like an alien buff to me. And with marines more frequently welding each other on the front line, marine pushes have actually become more effective.
ramps/stairs need some kind of fix/hack. its really annoying to lose all your momentum as skulk/fade because of them.
THere is a trick to it...
Zip-zag up the ramp, at each point/zig try and do a walljump. That way you can maintain your speed, if you just try and go straight up it you'll stuff up the timing on the jump queue and slow down.
Timing isn't the problem, you lose almost all your speed even if you jump. Stairs and slopes aren't a huge issue because you can learn to work around them but uneven terrain definitely is. Sometimes you land on an small edge or seam in the floor and lose all your speed.
Not sure how to explain it then, but I don't have any problem
b) it will get more people into the "teamworky" mindset and thus facilitate more and better real teamwork.
There's a lot to say for getting people into a teamwork mindset. Welders are good in this respect as they are an easy task to perform. No communication needed, no coordination, just occasionally grab one and help your friends out during a lull of combat. Bam, team player. I think the biggest issue with the welders now in pubs is that people are not aware that they need to perform this task. Perhaps on the armory screen a little "(recommended)" text could be placed next to the welder icon to really let folks know that they should get one.
As for a passive armor regen, perhaps it could be a research? 20 res at the armory? This way uncoordinated pubs could get their armor without welds, while more coordinated teams could skip it and use the res for other tech.
Just played the Balance mod an hour or so ago, and if you have a welder, you have passive armor regeneration, 1 armor/2sec. I actually liked it. Not sure if it works in combat or not though.
If it does then parasite damage would need to be buffed a bit to maintain the parasite + 2 bite kill. Probably better for it to be out of combat or just disabled from incoming damage.
That's what a couple of us were thinking, but again 2 seconds while in combat is a long time, if in 2 seconds you can't get the parasite kill, then more than likely he has already received a med pack., and it won't kill him either way.
While I understand the mechanics reason behind having a welder give passive regen, I wonder what the thematic reason could be? Are you literally just pointing the thing at yourself but too scared to turn it up to full power?
While I understand the mechanics reason behind having a welder give passive regen, I wonder what the thematic reason could be? Are you literally just pointing the thing at yourself but too scared to turn it up to full power?
That's what a couple of us were thinking, but again 2 seconds while in combat is a long time, if in 2 seconds you can't get the parasite kill, then more than likely he has already received a med pack., and it won't kill him either way.
This is a terrible idea, sure in the comp scene that statement may be true...but not in pubs.
Now a marine solo marine can repair his own armour...previously a lone marine in your base would be easier to kill over time as whilst he may be hetting med packs and ammo his armour would not replenish...thus making him easier to kill with each failed attempt.
If marines not welding and armoury's not healing armour is really an issue...this is most definately not the way to fix the problem as it screws up balance.
Make advanced armoury's repair armour (makes forward armour healing stations not cost effective) if you must...but this is just a silly idea.
Please stick with the current build where the armory only heal HEALTH and NOT armor We have welders for this, now we once again have given welders a purpose Wooohooo NS1 POWER
Comments
If there's no teamwork in the mundane "day to day" stuff, then how do you expect people to suddenly pull together and coordinate something big? It doesn't work, the fact that people think pub players can't even handle something simple like this is proof that the current game doesn't foster teamwork very well.
As for whoever was ranting about the lack of welding in combat servers, apples and oranges. I know that i sure as hell dont play combat to run around welding my fool teammates who try their best to juke me as I do so. I play combat for the COMBAT!
How does directly giving XP to your opponents to tech and then kill you easier not matter? That's kind of like saying dying and letting them take an RT position doesn't matter in a regular game. Fundamentally, it's the same thing.
*sigh*
You competitive players really are completely detached from the rest of the game. To take down chairs requires teamwork. Marines may not require as much to kill a hive, but Aliens do need it for chair destruction. And the whole Spore-Xenocide combination is effectively OP. A skulk and lerk working together can annihilate a marine team by themselves. Don't even give me that bull**** that there isn't teamwork. Welding is absolutely vital in Combat and relatively few people do it. It's essentially just veteran players who know better. Your #1 problem here is you are assuming that everyone has the same competitive attitude as you.
Furthermore, once an Onos comes out, you need the Exo. And without welding, you're just Onos Fodder (on most maps). And as I pointed out, the welder earns you XP to tech up. But people still don't do it. You never addressed this point. I don't think you ever will. Welding helps them get XP and keeps alive units they need. The guy with the scanner that prevents ambushes? Helps to keep that guy alive. The guy with the flamethrower to stop spore? Helps to keep them alive too. If people cannot even recognize that their success in Combat actually lies with their team, it's bat**** crazy to believe that non-compeitive players will actually do what you are saying in a BT turned vanilla.
Couldn't stand it. The Marine team I was on was getting annihilated without armor repair with no glance bites. We didn't even get to next tier level. I can see how once you tech up Marines have some advantages, but on a pub server where many of the marines are new, it's not even remotely balanced. Skulk stomp fest. That alone is going to ensure that many new players badmouth the game to their friends. The game's population is already pathetic. I can totally see this game fading into irrelevance. NS2 cannot even break the top 100 games played on Steam. This game needs new players and focusing on the desires of the competitive to the point where it's giving everyone else the middle finger is not the way to do it.
Right now the game has a chance to gather new players. Focusing on the desires of the competitive players is not the way to do it.
Honestly, this looks like a gaming version of the Windows 8 fiasco.
If servers want to the run the mod that's fine. Just don't force it as mandatory. Consumers, especially new ones tend to dislike having little choice.
People who don't weld in Combat results in faster alien tech and spectacularly useful xenocides (as in 4+ kills). Combat sucks when you're being Xenocided every 15 seconds (it is hilarious though on the alien side). But that's tends to happen to marine teams that don't work together and don't weld.
Basically, the mac is a very poor substitute for a multitude of reasons (that i list).. So no offense but i don't see that argument as being a valid one.
Its awkward at best, and further undermines any encouragement of team work - supposedly the biggest benefit of this welder change. (if not, then there are far simpler and more elegant approaches if frequency of armor regeneration was the only issue) and worst of all is that MACs are at the decision, discretion and whim of one person who is fiscally conservative and is not yourself.
You play with some bad ass noobs then. I kill certain people way more than 5 times. And if my team is awful and we're getting the Fade Train Full Court Press, I get killed way more than 8 times.
I dont think they wont do it, i just dont want to be spending all my time welding and building structures.
Plus, this isnt teamwork in the way that people enjoy. It's just creating an road block that your team mate needs to perform for you.
FUN teamwork is coordinating with the skulk across the room when to jump into a group of marines. Or beaconing back to make an full push into an enemy hive. Calling both those things teamwork cheapens the word.
I dont mind your idea of giving yourself a passive armor regen if you have a welder though. Sounds like a decent middleground.
Fake teamwork still feels like teamwork, though, so hopefully a) it will be fun for most people who like teamwork (and if someone doesn't like teamwork they're playing the wrong game) and b) it will get more people into the "teamworky" mindset and thus facilitate more and better real teamwork. That's my hope, anyway, since it looks like this change is making it into vanilla for sure.
Think of it less like a tactically brilliant play in football and more like the team cheering and congratulating each other after scoring a goal. "Teambuilding" rather than "teamwork". Maybe that'll be a good thing for the game after all.
Economists would call it "signalling".
You don't need for every marine to have a welder every life. In a push, 1 welder for every 2-3 marines is more than enough.
I think once people see the benefit of it, they won't looks back.
Teamwork, well this game should push it unashamedly, basically sticking to it's guns, it's the only reason I play, any other direction and this would be a crappy FPS/RTS because both are lacking, but the teamwork is it's shining point.
It's shouldn't pander to the "rambo" like people, like it has sometimes, by removing some needs of teamplay.
THere is a trick to it...
Zip-zag up the ramp, at each point/zig try and do a walljump. That way you can maintain your speed, if you just try and go straight up it you'll stuff up the timing on the jump queue and slow down.
Let's recap for a moment. You were saying you don't see people weld up each other in combat, and concluded from this that people won't do so in vanilla, ignoring the fact that people do weld each other all the time on BT servers already.
I have been trying to explain why people are less prone to weld each other on combat servers in comparison to vanilla/bt, and why combat server are thus not representative for the NS2 playerbase's potential for teamplay, referring to the inherently different nature/mindset of the combat mod. If you can't aknowledge that there is a big difference difference between combat and vanilla on the subject of teamwork, nor acknowledge that in bt mod it's hardly a problem to get your armor repaired, there's little point of further discussion.
Also, you keep claiming that the removal of glancing bites has somehow shifted balance into alien favor dramatically, yet it's easier to miss a bite now and get 0 damage while you maybe would have gotten 25 damage before. Maybe Sewlek, if he's reading this, could comment on the bite cone changes to clarify a bit? In any case, it hasn't felt like an alien buff to me. And with marines more frequently welding each other on the front line, marine pushes have actually become more effective.
Not sure how to explain it then, but I don't have any problem
There's a lot to say for getting people into a teamwork mindset. Welders are good in this respect as they are an easy task to perform. No communication needed, no coordination, just occasionally grab one and help your friends out during a lull of combat. Bam, team player. I think the biggest issue with the welders now in pubs is that people are not aware that they need to perform this task. Perhaps on the armory screen a little "(recommended)" text could be placed next to the welder icon to really let folks know that they should get one.
As for a passive armor regen, perhaps it could be a research? 20 res at the armory? This way uncoordinated pubs could get their armor without welds, while more coordinated teams could skip it and use the res for other tech.
i found the bug today, should be much better now
Residual nanites.
Nanites! Should have known :P
Now a marine solo marine can repair his own armour...previously a lone marine in your base would be easier to kill over time as whilst he may be hetting med packs and ammo his armour would not replenish...thus making him easier to kill with each failed attempt.
If marines not welding and armoury's not healing armour is really an issue...this is most definately not the way to fix the problem as it screws up balance.
Make advanced armoury's repair armour (makes forward armour healing stations not cost effective) if you must...but this is just a silly idea.
Makes me wonder where the balance is.....
http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2/c/2364830
Greate Job Sewlek!
Please stick with the current build where the armory only heal HEALTH and NOT armor