Although the idea of the alien commander converting tres into pres is interesting in theory, it can't possibly work unless lifeform pricing is drastically altered. The possibility of exploitation is simply too high
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited March 2014
The trade in 6v6 is essentially, do I quickly get a lot of mutators for very quick lerks and earlier fades, or do I invest into PvE to delay marines and better defend the harvester?
When I timed it a few weeks ago I seem to remember 2 minute lerks and 4:30 fades if you went quick double expansion with gorge build and spending everything on mutators. And since mutator gives 1 pres to the entire team, that's uniform for every player except a gorge.
I don't think a tres > pres relationship will ever truly be perfect. Much like having seperate pres and tres systems in the first place. If it is done property however the benefits are worth it. (Quicker re-lifeform when aliens have already won the game and are breaking turtles, more pve or faster life form timings trade, something to spend tres on when can't get more hives)
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
Speaking more about the title of this topic :
For purely pub games sake, I do hope that exo viability will be addressed /adjusted based on recent feedback threads, as well as the GT timings...
Neither effect competent comp games, but do drastically impact fun and balance of pub games, Imo.
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited March 2014
I think the often ignored, but the biggest balance factor in pub games is, team size imbalance.
Pub games often start, (or as the games progress, due to players leaving) with uneven numbers of players and PRes on both teams. Even in a large game of 10v10, the difference of just one player means 10% less PRes income, and less power.
Even with new players joining to replace those who left, the accumulated PRes on the leavers are lost, which happens more often, and impacts aliens more, since advanced lifeforms are expensive.
This (dis)advantage then often snowballs out of control, resulting in unsatisfying games that have their results decided in the first 10 minutes, but take much longer than necessary to finish.
A disirable public/casual game mode feature would be, give new players joining a game in progress Personal-Res, to catch up, in similar manner to Combat mod.
bilebomb on biomass 2 AGAIN?! really...
havent we learned from cuple (15?) builds ago when every game ended with 3 minute bilerush?
I think this is a pub balance thing. I don't see teams on comp. actually going gorge to bile (need more than 1 gorge to make it effective), then could be countered if comm drops a new cc elsewhere on map. And for your efforts, you can't get your fades / lerks up as fast. In a pub though, you 3-4 ppl going gorge early and could really punish marines for being greedy. Will have to see how it plays out. I guess one way to balance it is to scale bile damage with biomass? eg. biomass 2 only really good for taking out mines (bile at 50% effective ness - each biomass after will give you 25% more damage upto 100% (ie. biomass 2 bile = 50% damage, biomass 3 bile = 75% damage, biomass 4 bile = 100% damage -this is now maxed out). This way, the early bile isn't as viable, and you need to really hold 2 hives to make the most of bile.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited March 2014
@Cannon_FodderAUS
Still, to the point of the purpose of this thread: public games should still be considered and adjusted for.
You can't merely say L2P about everything.. sometimes you must recognize the average ability and skill level of your player base and what's reasonably, practically, and statistically going to occur.
@Cannon_FodderAUS
Still, to the point of the purpose of this thread: public games should still be considered and adjusted for.
You can't merely say L2P about everything.. sometimes you must recognize the average ability and skill level of your player base and what's reasonably, practically, and statistically going to occur.
Yeag. Ignoring public games is like what, ignoring the majority of the player base? As much people like to think there is only competivieness, the public portion is much larger.
I also think what @xDragon said is very important too, that there is also the large of issue of balacing for player count, not just skill. Something like 2v2 is ridiocusly alien sided imho due to easy expansion and autobuilding and somewhat OP lifeforms ( in 1v1 unless godly marine), where as 12v12 the AoE spam becomes somewhat OP (GL, Xeno) and the sheer amount of players can just unbalance the game, cause they'll take down things so mcuh faster, can be in so many places at once, and are also much harder to support as com. Lifeforms like fade can suddenly be shitty vs 6 shotguns in a narrow corridor, something you're not likely to encouter otherwise, but likewise a handful of marines just get butchered when faced with 7 fades.
Biomass 1 cost reduction from 20 to 15 res
Biomass research times +20 seconds
Harvest cost increased from 8 to 10 res
Shells, spurs and veils reduced in cost from 20 to 15 res
So it is a trade for having more biomass and upgrades when slowing the economy.
Encouraging commanders to use shift to teleport a harverster to its location. So long Shade first (especially on 24/24 servers).
Reductions in Lifeform research times and res cost accross the board
Hive type upgrade (crag, shell, shift) reduced from 10 to 5 res
Logical with a slowed economy.
Added Evolution chamber which hosts the life form upgrades
Approximate doubling of health life forms get per biomass
Significant reduction in Whip armor from 175 to 20, increased health from 650 to 750
So it's a "Liform trait mushroom" (arms lab for alien) that will be the 4th of first most important structure on alien side. Gulp... could you make 2 crag heal 2 times more ?? ... Just asking. How much does it costs ?
Added "Mutator" which grants each team member 1 pres for 15 tres
Hives now only go up to biomass 2
Abilities moved to different biomass requirements:
1) babblers, SS
2) bile, Charge
3) leap, umbra
4) Vortex, boneshield
5) web, spores
6) xeno, stab stomp
So basically it's trying to slow down alien economy while giving a little push on abilities and allow commander to give res to players at a high price though. It still admits that alien get punched in the face for the early game (clan play skill level of course).
Unfortunately it doesn't solve the main issue.
6vs6 is ok. 12vs12 isn't.
As long as some parameter stay static (like res income speed, bullet damage, choose one); a 12v12 is still clearly unbalanced. As long as marine know how to shoot a skulk of course.
Comments
When I timed it a few weeks ago I seem to remember 2 minute lerks and 4:30 fades if you went quick double expansion with gorge build and spending everything on mutators. And since mutator gives 1 pres to the entire team, that's uniform for every player except a gorge.
I don't think a tres > pres relationship will ever truly be perfect. Much like having seperate pres and tres systems in the first place. If it is done property however the benefits are worth it. (Quicker re-lifeform when aliens have already won the game and are breaking turtles, more pve or faster life form timings trade, something to spend tres on when can't get more hives)
For purely pub games sake, I do hope that exo viability will be addressed /adjusted based on recent feedback threads, as well as the GT timings...
Neither effect competent comp games, but do drastically impact fun and balance of pub games, Imo.
Pub games often start, (or as the games progress, due to players leaving) with uneven numbers of players and PRes on both teams. Even in a large game of 10v10, the difference of just one player means 10% less PRes income, and less power.
Even with new players joining to replace those who left, the accumulated PRes on the leavers are lost, which happens more often, and impacts aliens more, since advanced lifeforms are expensive.
This (dis)advantage then often snowballs out of control, resulting in unsatisfying games that have their results decided in the first 10 minutes, but take much longer than necessary to finish.
A disirable public/casual game mode feature would be, give new players joining a game in progress Personal-Res, to catch up, in similar manner to Combat mod.
havent we learned from cuple (15?) builds ago when every game ended with 3 minute bilerush?
I think this is a pub balance thing. I don't see teams on comp. actually going gorge to bile (need more than 1 gorge to make it effective), then could be countered if comm drops a new cc elsewhere on map. And for your efforts, you can't get your fades / lerks up as fast. In a pub though, you 3-4 ppl going gorge early and could really punish marines for being greedy. Will have to see how it plays out. I guess one way to balance it is to scale bile damage with biomass? eg. biomass 2 only really good for taking out mines (bile at 50% effective ness - each biomass after will give you 25% more damage upto 100% (ie. biomass 2 bile = 50% damage, biomass 3 bile = 75% damage, biomass 4 bile = 100% damage -this is now maxed out). This way, the early bile isn't as viable, and you need to really hold 2 hives to make the most of bile.
Still, to the point of the purpose of this thread: public games should still be considered and adjusted for.
You can't merely say L2P about everything.. sometimes you must recognize the average ability and skill level of your player base and what's reasonably, practically, and statistically going to occur.
Yeag. Ignoring public games is like what, ignoring the majority of the player base? As much people like to think there is only competivieness, the public portion is much larger.
I also think what @xDragon said is very important too, that there is also the large of issue of balacing for player count, not just skill. Something like 2v2 is ridiocusly alien sided imho due to easy expansion and autobuilding and somewhat OP lifeforms ( in 1v1 unless godly marine), where as 12v12 the AoE spam becomes somewhat OP (GL, Xeno) and the sheer amount of players can just unbalance the game, cause they'll take down things so mcuh faster, can be in so many places at once, and are also much harder to support as com. Lifeforms like fade can suddenly be shitty vs 6 shotguns in a narrow corridor, something you're not likely to encouter otherwise, but likewise a handful of marines just get butchered when faced with 7 fades.
I would prefer using scalars on things like building HP and upgrade effectiveness to balance out player count.
Encouraging commanders to use shift to teleport a harverster to its location. So long Shade first (especially on 24/24 servers). Logical with a slowed economy. So it's a "Liform trait mushroom" (arms lab for alien) that will be the 4th of first most important structure on alien side. Gulp... could you make 2 crag heal 2 times more ?? ... Just asking. How much does it costs ?
So basically it's trying to slow down alien economy while giving a little push on abilities and allow commander to give res to players at a high price though. It still admits that alien get punched in the face for the early game (clan play skill level of course).
Unfortunately it doesn't solve the main issue.
6vs6 is ok. 12vs12 isn't.
As long as some parameter stay static (like res income speed, bullet damage, choose one); a 12v12 is still clearly unbalanced. As long as marine know how to shoot a skulk of course.