End Game Mechanics

Saint_ThothSaint_Thoth Join Date: 2003-05-27 Member: 16767Members, Constellation
Okay, I've just seen too much of this, so as a developer and someone who's probably logged well over a thousand hours in NS1, I'm going to do the rebalance manifesto that's no doubt been done a thousand times before.

Regail me with how many times you've seen this:
• Aliens have 80% resource control for 90% of the game.
• Aliens have three hives, maximum biomass, and full upgrades.
• Aliens lose.

And don't get me wrong, I love epic turtles, but I have to sleep, and I just can't bring myself to leave epic turtles... In the past two weeks, I have seen seven (7) games, where an epic marine turtle has lasted two hours, ending in terminal server crash (for some reason the server always dies around the 2 hour mark, and fails to restart.) In at least half of those games, the turtles began before the marines even had exo's. You can't help but laugh at how broken that is when the aliens can pull no such thing. (And the fact that I've spent 14 hours maintaining or failing to break marine turtles since 250.)

That all being said...

When the aliens have three hives and full upgrades, and the marines are down to one com chair, the marines should lose in short order, no if ands or buts. The aliens should have no trouble overrunning and cracking the base when the marines have failed this badly.

Suggestions:
• Exo's with anything but railguns should require 2 command chairs.
- Exo's with railguns are good in the hands of an elite, but they don't stop upgraded Onos - and you shouldn't be able to stop an upgraded Onos with one command chair.
• Grenade Launchers should require 2 command chairs. (Or be much weaker with only 1)
- Grenade launcher spam is the #1 cause of epic turtles.
• The robotics factory needs a rim around its base so Gorges can jump over it, and/or have its size considerably reduced, and/or its cost raised by 5-10 res, and/or require two command chairs.
• If *either* side has +70% res control, the res rate needs to slowly ramp up to the degree where they have effectively limitless res within 10 minutes, and can break the opposing team in short order.

No end game mechanic should ever be nerfed, or said end game mechanic will not end the game. Similarly, end game mechanics should not appear before the end game has been reached.
• Vortex needs to last at least twice as long to give it more than entertainment value.
• Stomp could use a boost.
• Xenocide could use a boost. (Remember odds are, in a good game, this is vs. Armor 3)
• Biomass should count extra on higher life forms beyond level 6.
• And with the Exo requirements above, said Exo's will be an end game mechanic, instead of a balance breaking epic come back that only one side can pull.

And something we learned in NS1 but apparently forgot:
• Phantom (Cloaking) needs to provide 100% invisibility when standing still at level 3. Anyone who's played this game more than a week has setup their graphics settings to where Phantom is useless, save for the silence effect. The current "slightly/plainly" visible effect should only apply when crawling. The time you waste sitting still and waiting is penalty enough.

Another thing we learned in NS1, and is probably key to this whole problem, and has also no doubt been said over and over again, yet ignored: BALANCE TESTS ARE ONLY PERFORMED BY ELITE PLAYERS. What balances well for elites, does not necessarily translate well for casuals, and the majority of your client population, at the moment, are casuals... (And a great many of us will never enter the ranks of the elite, regardless of hours played.)

I'm sure 250 is perfectly balanced for elites, because it was tested by them, and thus balanced for them. What we did in NS1, to compensate for this discrepancy, is introduce tournament mode, which changed the balance structure slightly. Rookie Friendly flagged servers should be balanced with casuals in mind (stronger aliens), and regular servers should favor the elite (nerfed aliens).

...And yes, much like in NS1, one elite Fade can carry the whole team to victory - but that, as in NS1, is the result of the Fade just being too damn hard to hit, and again, only applies to elite games (or Rookie games being trolled by elite players).

Also, I strongly suggest setting up a central statistic tracker that covers all servers. I saw eight consecutive alien losses on the Rookie servers (Ibis specifically) the day before 250 came out, and couldn't believe what I saw the next day.

And that all being said...

This is a wonderful adaptation and continuation of the original game. It's beautifully rendered, and just fantastic in so many ways I can't hardly begin to describe. I've put off migrating from NS1 to NS2 for the longest time, because I knew I'd just get addicted all over again. So don't take this criticism harshly. This is just yet another beg thread from the casual pool*. Don't forget us!

* (Seems no matter how many hours I log in one of these games, my actual skill set never advances beyond moderate - probably cuz I r old.)




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Comments

  • EmooEmoo Ibasa Join Date: 2002-12-20 Member: 11198Members
    Okay, I've just seen too much of this, so as a developer and someone who's probably logged well over a thousand hours in NS1, I'm going to do the rebalance manifesto that's no doubt been done a thousand times before.

    Regail me with how many times you've seen this:
    • Aliens have 80% resource control for 90% of the game.
    • Aliens have three hives, maximum biomass, and full upgrades.
    • Aliens lose.

    Yeh :(

    It's a combination of two problems. First that aliens tech is heavily tied to tech points while marines can get nearly everything one 1 tech point. Secondly that end game marine tech is substantially better than alien end game tech.

    Not sure I agree with all your fixes but I agree with your assessment of the issue.
  • Cannon_FodderAUSCannon_FodderAUS Brisbane, AU Join Date: 2013-06-23 Member: 185664Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    Emoo wrote: »
    Okay, I've just seen too much of this, so as a developer and someone who's probably logged well over a thousand hours in NS1, I'm going to do the rebalance manifesto that's no doubt been done a thousand times before.

    Regail me with how many times you've seen this:
    • Aliens have 80% resource control for 90% of the game.
    • Aliens have three hives, maximum biomass, and full upgrades.
    • Aliens lose.

    Yeh :(

    It's a combination of two problems. First that aliens tech is heavily tied to tech points while marines can get nearly everything one 1 tech point. Secondly that end game marine tech is substantially better than alien end game tech.

    Not sure I agree with all your fixes but I agree with your assessment of the issue.

    Agree with you both. Specifically, I am a casual gamer. @Saint_thoth, I know exactly what you mean about putting in hours, but not improving (I is old 2 :-)). Quiet a few games now, when I comm Aliens, we dominated all game, and marines were on 2 res and 1 cc, and after 30 more minutes, exo/ARC/MAC death ball roll out and stomp us (worse if they held 2 cc for any length of time), they got dualies.

    Seems like 250 forced Aliens to play more tightly as a team (its a good thing, but its a bit too much team work to ask in a pub). Marines could never really rambo or they die horribly. But it seems now the more advance lifeforms of Aliens can't rambo either (that they are loners were the whole point I thought).

    tl;dr: agreed with your assessment of problem, and many suggestions (here and on the General Forum) about how to best balance this.
  • SamusDroidSamusDroid Colorado Join Date: 2013-05-13 Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    edited July 2013
    Okay, I've just seen too much of this, so as a developer and someone who's probably logged well over a thousand hours in NS1, I'm going to do the rebalance manifesto that's no doubt been done a thousand times before.

    Regail me with how many times you've seen this:
    • Aliens have 80% resource control for 90% of the game.
    • Aliens have three hives, maximum biomass, and full upgrades.
    • Aliens lose.
    I hate seeing this, it's pathetic. If marines had 3 chairs, last alien hive would be obliterated in seconds, with their exo trains, arc trains. Happens at least once a day for me, happened just earlier today actually. Had every upgrade, max tres, and still lost. Which btw, drifter res should be upped, maybe to 250. I wouldn't mind arcs being removed, or aliens to get some sort of siege weapon. Duals are OP too, maybe set a max amount of duals for a team? I'll continue to say that I think Weapons 3/Armor 3 could stand to be tied to a 2nd chair, along with Dual Exo. Maybe make it so that there needs to be 3 arms labs to get full effect, with health nerfed a bit, and lowered cost by 25%. A horrible idea, but some sort of handicap? Like >3 hives/chairs buff health of everyone by 20% on that team. Make it so that stomps are less often to occur, everyone hates being on the other side of a stacked team.

    I had an epic game as a Marine the other day on Docking. Aliens had Departures and Generator, we were getting slammed, another 5 minutes and we would have lost. So I say to the team, "I see a way to win, everyone who can buy a dual buy one, go straight for Departures and then Gen" So we get like 3-4 duals, and a railgun, and rest jp sg welders. We destroy Departures no trouble at all, while the Aliens are busy with Locker while the com recycled. We then take down Gen in minutes, and then we realized Aliens dropped Locker, so we continue on through there, and then the Aliens ninja'd a hive in departures again, so we go kill that and end up winning. That doesn't seem fair does it?
  • Mattk50Mattk50 Join Date: 2013-02-04 Member: 182824Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    thats 4 1-hour long games in a row now thanks to marine turtles. The last one marines pushed out from one tp.
  • twilitebluetwiliteblue bug stalker Join Date: 2003-02-04 Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    edited July 2013
    Biomass power&health scaling are too low. The concept of aliens gaining power from map control to help end games is good. But currently the amount of health aliens gain is insuffient to break well fortified marines based.

    However, the main cause of the marine "unbreakable" turtle is the high player count on some of the servers. The current maps are only balanced for 12 to 16 players, and marines gain more advantage in numbers.
  • GISPGISP Battle Gorge Denmark Join Date: 2004-03-20 Member: 27460Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester, Forum staff
    Balance test isnt only performed by elites, and feedback is taken from everyone who provide it.
  • 2cough2cough Rocky Mountain High Join Date: 2013-03-14 Member: 183952Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    seen lots of what OP is describing, I like most of those suggestions. like the projectile spores idea, don't remember who said it, but only like 4 hive, cuz that'd be crazy obnoxious unless you were definitely about to lose. but yeah I agree winning alien teams should be able to win more fluidly.
  • Saint_ThothSaint_Thoth Join Date: 2003-05-27 Member: 16767Members, Constellation
    GISP wrote: »
    Balance test isnt only performed by elites, and feedback is taken from everyone who provide it.
    Nubs and casuals generally do not read of nor volunteer to test betas. The only testers you are likely to get are heavily experienced players, thus skewing any results in their favor.
  • SeahuntsSeahunts Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151973Members
    edited July 2013
    A long time ago there was a thread (or several) about good old marine turtle mode.

    My suggestion was that the alien side could unlock some kind of turtle breaking ability when (and only when) they have mature hives at every tech point bar the marines single last point.

    What that ability should be is open to suggestion. I'd suggest a 3x carapace boost. Maybe long lasting enzyme?
  • RadmanRadman Join Date: 2013-04-05 Member: 184656Members
    edited July 2013
    As a noob i tried to provide my feedback for the balance mod in the thread, but nobody responded. Maybe sewlek listened, but i wouldnt know. I was largely ignored.
  • MPG|RED HOOKMPG|RED HOOK Join Date: 2012-09-03 Member: 157598Members
    I think it might just be that pub players have not gotten used to the new aliens. Also alien com is a lot more important now. I have not seen the new drifter abilities used in pub play at all.
  • CCTEECCTEE Join Date: 2013-06-20 Member: 185634Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    I have never seen a marine turtle (meaning only 1 CC + 1 rt left, aliens surrounding them and trying to end it) which lasted for some time (lets say more then 2 min) ending in a marine win. As soon as marines try to regain map control or just try and attack a hive by pushing out their base is overrun... You win turtles quickly by a) really coordinating your attack as aliens b) trashtalk the marine team in conceding c) a combination of the above.
  • BoBiNoUBoBiNoU Join Date: 2007-12-27 Member: 63274Members
    Acid rockets as 3rd hive ability.
    Problem solved
  • Kenshir0Kenshir0 Join Date: 2013-02-25 Member: 183347Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited July 2013
    When GL's and flamers are on the field the game is ruined.I mostly play aliens and every game has been like what the OP said the only time aliens win is when there is an early skulk rush or a marine team full of rookies.

    Imo the whip ability should come back to bounce back grenades and for flamers maybe a new ability for a shade or drifter or something to make rooms more 'humid' wich decreases the flamers effectiveness so 2 players cant melt an entire base in 1 minute

    also onos needs to get a boost either be faster or get more armor it is a pretty useless lifeform as it is now, and not every game has a dedicated lerk to umbra the shit out of everything especially now when they die even faster.
  • WobWob Join Date: 2005-04-08 Member: 47814Members, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    BALANCE TESTS ARE ONLY PERFORMED BY ELITE PLAYERS.

    And this is a GOOD thing. The only thing that should separate "elite" players from "casuals" is effectively aim and individual skill.
    The META game and STRATEGY and COUNTER STRATEGIES are there regardless of who is playing!!! It's just "elite" players do the counter strategies and "casual" players often go for the frags and engagements and then people complain when they can't 1v1 marines with 3-3 EXOs and JP SG / GL/ FT in 10 minutes because no one bit res nodes and aliens couldn't tech up. Often it's "omg 6 marines in ore processing killing the harvester, defend!!" when you could just base rush and win or force a beacon and kill all peripheral resource nodes.
  • PimpToadPimpToad Join Date: 2012-11-02 Member: 166005Members
    UWE doesn't want to implement the aliens having some sort of endgame superweapon that can be researched when controlling every tech point besides the single marine CC. Just a simple research that will automatically end the game when its completed (or the countdown reaches 0:00 on the marine side). Asymmetrical solution where marines just wreck aliens on 1-Hive, but aliens can auto-win after 'x' time when controlling all other tech points.

    Instead we have marine turtles fortified with vitamin exo to further improve the chances of a marine comeback. I honestly don't see the logic behind it (quite frankly I think it's pretty retarded), but eh guess that's why I'm not a dev?
  • HolyTealHolyTeal Join Date: 2011-03-09 Member: 85427Members
    edited July 2013
    +1
    I have seen that so many times !! I bought the game 1 week ago and started playing on B250 and there is definitely a problem about marines turtling. Last time it happened; we build 4 IP, the game lasted 1H30 and we won as marines but for everyone, even us, it didn't seem fair at all.
    Aliens definitely needs a buff against that on end-game.
    And just another thing from a rookie point of view : marines need some weapons to have fun in early game, a shotgun costs 20 res, it's really too much for a basic weapon like this! ==> So what happens is this : marines stick to rifle 90% of time until 'end games' comes then bam! suddenly exos/jetpack gets out and you can have some fun weapons but you waste your res on it 2/3 times and it's over. I think this mechanic is not good, it need to be more like a classic fps with more fluidity in the weapons evolution, now it's too much like you have nothing or you have everything, there is no medium stuffs ! Maybe the com should be the one who provide weapons to marines, could be a cool mechanic.
  • twilitebluetwiliteblue bug stalker Join Date: 2003-02-04 Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    Kenshir0 wrote: »
    When GL's and flamers are on the field the game is ruined.I mostly play aliens and every game has been like what the OP said the only time aliens win is when there is an early skulk rush or a marine team full of rookies.

    Imo the whip ability should come back to bounce back grenades and for flamers maybe a new ability for a shade or drifter or something to make rooms more 'humid' wich decreases the flamers effectiveness so 2 players cant melt an entire base in 1 minute

    also onos needs to get a boost either be faster or get more armor it is a pretty useless lifeform as it is now, and not every game has a dedicated lerk to umbra the shit out of everything especially now when they die even faster.

    Flamethrowers are going to get their damage tweaked. Meanwhile, there are counters to them. Lerks can snipe marines with flamethrowers from long range with spikes. Skulks and Fades with proper timing can shred any light armoured marines before they can react.

    I love placing Whips to the side of doors and gorge tunnels to slap those marines that try to be brave. :P

    For the Onos, you'd want to use the Charge movement (shift key) more often. Better watch your energy level while doing it though.
  • Racer1Racer1 Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9615Members
    Solution: Mega onos:
    4 alien players go Onos and join to become a Mega-Onos", with 4x armor and 4x damage attack and 4x attack speed.

    The only caveat: Each of the 4 players only controls one of the 4 legs. So, you have to move all in the same direction or he goes nowhere.
  • HolyTealHolyTeal Join Date: 2011-03-09 Member: 85427Members
    Maybe add an armor ability that protects the onoss from fire and gl for few seconds ! Racer you troll xD
  • RaZDaZRaZDaZ Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167331Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Aliens aren't coordinating enough in pub games and it's extremely frustrating. I've lost so many games where we had 3 hives and marines make a strong push but nobody is working together so we just lose anyway despite having every single upgrade. Marines are just so far ahead of the curve atm in pub play teamwork. Alien pubs need to change their psychology in order to be more cooperative.

    Look, if you 're having trouble with last stands. Get 3-4 onos, 1-2 lerks and everyone else gorge, get some drifters, spam enzyme but make sure it's a coordinated group or yeah you will have 2h last stands. Even if you don't kill the marines, you do significant damage to their base and chances are, you will kill most of the buildings. Just keep repeating pushes with half your team gorge. You will eventually do too much damage and marines have to GG.

    I would like to see more HP on the onos though, it's just so sad seeing them at 600+hp lower and stomp being nearly useless.
  • CrazyEddieCrazyEddie Join Date: 2013-01-08 Member: 178196Members
    Team coordination is a deliberately vital gameplay element. It's easy to break a turtle with good teamwork, and the worse your teamwork is, the harder it is. That's fine.

    The problem is that it's hard for bad alien teams to break a turtle but easy for bad alien teams to keep the marines bottled up, while at the same time it's easy for bad marines to set up a turtle and hard for bad marines to break OUT of their containment. This means that an even match between pub players will, if the aliens are winning, end up in a 2-hour turtle followed by a server crash.

    The pub players just aren't good enough to save themselves from this fate.

    That's a problem. And the solution is not for them to get better, because there will always be bad players. They deserve to have a good game too.

    Can we make it easier for a poorly-coordinated alien team to eventually break in? Or for a poorly-coordinated marine team to break out? Or both?
  • EmooEmoo Ibasa Join Date: 2002-12-20 Member: 11198Members
    RaZDaZ wrote: »
    Aliens aren't coordinating enough in pub games and it's extremely frustrating. I've lost so many games where we had 3 hives and marines make a strong push but nobody is working together so we just lose anyway despite having every single upgrade. Marines are just so far ahead of the curve atm in pub play teamwork. Alien pubs need to change their psychology in order to be more cooperative.

    Look, if you 're having trouble with last stands. Get 3-4 onos, 1-2 lerks and everyone else gorge, get some drifters, spam enzyme but make sure it's a coordinated group or yeah you will have 2h last stands. Even if you don't kill the marines, you do significant damage to their base and chances are, you will kill most of the buildings. Just keep repeating pushes with half your team gorge. You will eventually do too much damage and marines have to GG.

    I'm sorry but this is not the be all and end all of this. I had a game yesterday (9v9) where we had 4 onos, 3 gorges, a lerk and a fade all attack the final marine base together with enzyme. We did this for over 30 minutes before we finally broke through enough to win. Between A3/W3, GLs, FTs, exos, macs, arcs, armory walls and marines welding it's a bloody tough nut to crack!

    The madness is that in the reverse situation the marines wouldn't even need that much teamwork, a couple of duel exos and macs could of easily brought down the entire alien team on one hive. Hell one JP/FT could probably do it with some luck.

    Alien late game tech sucks. It really really sucks compared to marine late game tech. Yes coordination helps lessen the impact of it's suckyness but the problem is that late game alien tech sucks.
  • HolyTealHolyTeal Join Date: 2011-03-09 Member: 85427Members
    Yeah aliens tech sucks +1
  • RadmanRadman Join Date: 2013-04-05 Member: 184656Members
    nachos wrote: »
    BALANCE TESTS ARE ONLY PERFORMED BY ELITE PLAYERS.

    And this is a GOOD thing. The only thing that should separate "elite" players from "casuals" is effectively aim and individual skill.
    The META game and STRATEGY and COUNTER STRATEGIES are there regardless of who is playing!!! It's just "elite" players do the counter strategies and "casual" players often go for the frags and engagements and then people complain when they can't 1v1 marines with 3-3 EXOs and JP SG / GL/ FT in 10 minutes because no one bit res nodes and aliens couldn't tech up. Often it's "omg 6 marines in ore processing killing the harvester, defend!!" when you could just base rush and win or force a beacon and kill all peripheral resource nodes.

    Except aim and skill affect the viability of certain strategies and tactics.
  • Saint_ThothSaint_Thoth Join Date: 2003-05-27 Member: 16767Members, Constellation
    edited July 2013
    Yes, the early ace Fade strategy, for example, being the primary reason for so many of the alien nerfs, that isn't a factor in a more casual game... Again, barring elites trolling rookie servers with 100:5 KDR super Fades. There are indeed whole clans that dedicate themselves to trolling rookie servers, so there is the fact that a section of the community simply doesn't want casuals to play, which maybe a factor in this - it may even be some of the devs share that philosophy.

    Similarly, the Jetpack+Shotty rush, which maybe viable in a more elite game, inevitably fails miserably in a casual game.

    But even in an elite game, we seem to all be able to agree:
    - The final alien upgrade line needs to be more strongly dedicated to base cracking.
    - Some of the marine upgrades, that are so good for base cracking or sustaining, need to be moved up and not to be so easily available when the marines are so deep in the hole.

    Making the Flame Thrower and Grenade Launcher dependant on Arms Labs upgrades again would help some. Particularly if they were fairly weak at weapons 0, and gained more than the standard 10%/weapons level upgrade boost. Wouldn't resolve anything by itself, especially late game, but it would help make casual games more viable short term.


  • SamusDroidSamusDroid Colorado Join Date: 2013-05-13 Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    I think it might just be that pub players have not gotten used to the new aliens. Also alien com is a lot more important now. I have not seen the new drifter abilities used in pub play at all.
    I've used them a few times, didn't find them extremely useful, the armor healing one is pretty weak.
    Though I have had a few moment when I said, dang I wish I had emp there :D
  • Samus1111111Samus1111111 Join Date: 2012-08-07 Member: 154930Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Do welders still heal faster than BB damages? If so, this should be changed and that would help a bit with turtles. Maybe even having BB on a building prevents a welder from doing anything, thus forcing the marines to use a FT to clear the BB.
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