Alien territory control in pub play has been absolutely ridiculous for far too long in general, and this was in no small part down to gorge tunnels at the start with massive amounts of health. Now that marines in pubs are able to shoot slightly better due to performance improvements, and they are able to be more aggressive due to some specific alien structure HP nerfs, aliens begin to feel the pressure again that early game is actually more about defence for the alien team than it is for marines - and this is how it should be given the improved mobility of aliens vs marines.
I sign this. It was much more fun and feeling more "tactical" as a Gorge defending an important area pre 250. Having a skulk or two defending together with a Gorge, yea that can be brought back, but I don't think real packplay will ever sink in as standard alien gameplay in pub.
I get that players will expect a consistent interaction from server to server (read playercount to playercount), but at some point the potential for twice (or sometimes more) the amount of players pushing a hive/GT/Powernode/IP needs to be taken into consideration.
In my mind, If there can be 10+ rifles (not even GLs) shooting a hive, it would go down about twice as fast (5x more marines that 6v6), meaning an adjustment to HP/Armor of the Hive would make sense to compensate and still allow a similar amount of time to respond.
I guess that the issue I'm pointing out is that in smaller games with less people, there is a much greater amount of time to respond and clear threats before severe damage is done.
Unless the idea is "if you let them get to your hive and cant wipe them out in less than 20 seconds, you DESERVE to loose that hive/game" which seems....unfun.
I'm not saying that the HP values should ever change during a live game, like if 5 people leave the values scale down (I don't think the extra IP goes away if the player count lowers), but if the potential at round start exists for 5+ more people to be attacking a structure, there should be some kind of scaling to allow the defending team the same amount of time to respond to the attack as in smaller games.
P.S. I understand that in an IDEAL world, if there are 10 people atacking, then there should be 10 people defending, and if you haven't seen the enemy team for a while or hear a beacon you should be aware of an imminent attack, or that you should always be scouting lanes, or that you should just make a counter push, ... but doesn't this seem like a little to much coordination to ask of a bunch of Pub scrubs who just want to have fun?
You seem to ignore the fact, that in larger games the map is more widely saturated by the players. You are infact MORE likely to route-block/scout properly. So I'd put it to you, that you actually by this nature have MORE time to react than you do in smaller games.
Keep in mind, to scout properly, you do not need to win a single engagements - you simply need to be present in the general area.
you know back when I first started playing (sometime around 249/250ish) Gorge Tunnels required research!! Crazy idea right? If I remember correctly it was still biomass 1, but the required research time (and res) meant they weren't up instantly.
Oh and babblers were available at the start, and Gorges only cost 5Pres...
IT WAS PERFECT!!!!!
Then they started mucking it up... Gorges cost 8Pres now instead of 5... Gorges suddenly can drop tunnels at the start (worst change by far!)... Tunnels can only be placed on Nav mesh (instead of just fixing the 3-5 exploitable spots, they removed dozens upon dozens of legit useful spots)... Now we have less Pres (so essentially early game Gorges cost more) AND the tunnels have super low health...
What I wouldn't give for someone to make a mod reverting all the bad changes while keeping the good ones, then have a server run it...
Then they started mucking it up... Gorges cost 8Pres now instead of 5... Gorges suddenly can drop tunnels at the start (worst change by far!)... Tunnels can only be placed on Nav mesh (instead of just fixing the 3-5 exploitable spots, they removed dozens upon dozens of legit useful spots)... Now we have less Pres (so essentially early game Gorges cost more) AND the tunnels have super low health...
Part of the reason for the cost increase was also that it was just too easy to gorge bilebomb suicide into the enemy base over and over again. So overall i like the gorge changes
You are remembering incorrectly @MoFo1 , see my prior post.
They began on biomass 6 for good reasons
ah ok biomass 6... even better! I just knew they required research and weren't available quickly...
Seriously Gorge was such a blast to play when I first started NS2... These days if I go early Gorge there's a good 85-90% chance I'm going to die within the first minute unless I play like a huge coward and stay as far away from any Marines as possible... It's almost like throwing away all my res at the beginning of a game for nothing...
I guess the typical response would be "just get better" but with 1200+ hours and counting I've pretty much reached my skill ceiling.
Oh and again the super early Marine tech is ruining so many games.
I get the saturation thing, but it still relies on the player actually calling out what they saw, which is too much for most pubbers.
I suppose I could keep my eyes glued to the map, even during fights just to notice what players are not calling out.
Also, there is still the tendency in Pubs to pack together (everyone goes one side of the map) meaning there are still many lanes that don't get watched.
And even if they do get scouted, it still takes a very small amount of time to do unrepairable damage to a team.
But hey, If everyone thinks its OK for a hive/power node to have the same HP in a 6v6 as a 12v12 then I guess I've done all I can by suggesting it!
I never see them used/researched. Two reasons are that they are on biomass 6 and a sane Lerk won't just fly near middle/late game rines with shotguns and that the commanders research bilebomb and everything else before Lerk upgrades.
As I read that the alien research is more open now, I hoped that you could decide to research early leap or spores or other abilities to get more diversity into the games. But it is still the same old research. Are there plans to make the research more flexible again or will everything stay as it is cause it works fine balance wise? I would rly love to see early spores back and commanders who try out new tactics. Right now, every game is kinda similar.
Well actually, there was only one point. And the point was 'dont drop tunnels you can't keep'.
I'm really hoping to see this change break the complete (and unnecessary) reliance aliens seem to have on tunnels in pubs currently.
Not to mention, gorges might finally start actually doing useful stuff with their pres early game, like fortifying chokes with hydras and clog forests, instead of building gorge tunnels that give the aliens perhaps 2-3 seconds faster travel to a specific, predictable spot that is prone to drawing gunfire in a push.
Edit: I posted an unposted draft... Roo above me says it all in more words with better meanings and stuff. I am samrt
It's a public game. This isn't competitive play. Lets say, we removed gorge tunnels entirely. A decent player will probably try a new tactic and attempt to improve upon it. The avg public player will still do what they always did. Clog up an entire doorway, place hydras on it, and then build nearby res towers. A gorge tunnel gave gorges much more mobility, and to be entirely honest I don't know why there still isn't an hive-sight faint aura around the gorge tunnel to get them more used.
You know, I still occasionally get upset at how bad public players are and very rarely berate them. Sometimes though a competitive player will tell me, "Dude, it's just a public game. You can't expect them to be good.".
So why are we making these changes and expecting to force public players into being better when that isn't going to happen?
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
@ball2hi
Again, those players were still "better" a year ago when it was previously at biomass 6 and rarely seen... holding a 70% alien win rate.
So forgive me, but may i suggest that your concern as far as balance goes, comes off a bit like a doomsayer - especially with winrates still favoring aliens. (more than what ns2stats reports)
Even if pubs are incapable of adapting like you propose, they will still be fine... but i believe they can, and will anyways.
@ball2hi
Again, those players were still "better" a year ago when it was previously at biomass 6 and rarely seen... holding a 70% alien win rate.
So forgive me, but may i suggest that your concern as far as balance goes, comes off a bit like a doomsayer - especially with winrates still favoring aliens. (more than what ns2stats reports)
Even if pubs are incapable of adapting like you propose, they will still be fine... but i believe they can, and will anyways.
I'm just going to wait a while before using ns2stats after this patch. I still see a lot of alien losses/concedes/f4 since this patch but that's anectodle.
I have a hard time believing that the win stats are still favoring Aliens... I mean I guess the data proves all, but I swear it feels like 8/10 games I've played since this build have ended with a Marine win...
Hell I played a game last night on Marines where we had zero teamwork, no coordination, and a commander who wasn't very good... We couldn't hold our phasegates, lost so much T.res it was mind boggling (at least 2 proto's went down while researching) and Aliens had tunnels at both of our natural RT's for most of the game... and we still won.
The fact that we were even able to get JP's after losing TWO proto's, all without holding more than 2-3 RT's max... it just felt broken.
You know, it feels like we should make two versions of vanilla, one for euros and one for the americans, cuz fuck me that shit you guys write is so surreal.
You know, it feels like we should make two versions of vanilla, one for euros and one for the americans, cuz fuck me that shit you guys write is so surreal.
can someone explain what the 'commander penalty' was?
like he couldn't earn any res while out of com chair for 60 seconds?
or the commander cant spawn with res when hes inside the seat
i like evolving into gorge first then jumping into command chair , it makes it so i can build my own structures and clog upgrades but i dont know if thats exploiting the mechanic or if its supposed to allow that
can someone explain what the 'commander penalty' was?
like he couldn't earn any res while out of com chair for 60 seconds?
or the commander cant spawn with res when hes inside the seat
i like evolving into gorge first then jumping into command chair , it makes it so i can build my own structures and clog upgrades but i dont know if thats exploiting the mechanic or if its supposed to allow that
It was both of those things. Comms started with 0 pres and getting in the cc/hive would stop you recieving pres for 1 minute after you get out. It was intended to discourage creative use of the additional pres (mines, gorge stuff in base etc) but the 60 second penalty was very harsh for times when someone else was required to jump in the chair and drop an IP or whatever if the actual comm was dead. At least I assume that's why they removed it.
comms still start with 0 pres now but at least if you're an alien you usually have enough spare time to get out and kill stuff and potentially save up enough pres for a lifeform.
I never see them used/researched. Two reasons are that they are on biomass 6 and a sane Lerk won't just fly near middle/late game rines with shotguns and that the commanders research bilebomb and everything else before Lerk upgrades.
As I read that the alien research is more open now, I hoped that you could decide to research early leap or spores or other abilities to get more diversity into the games. But it is still the same old research. Are there plans to make the research more flexible again or will everything stay as it is cause it works fine balance wise? I would rly love to see early spores back and commanders who try out new tactics. Right now, every game is kinda similar.
Now this is an interesting post with good brainstorming flowing. Whether or not spores are valid with biomass 6 against shotguns is a valid point that I often look past. When I command, lerk upgrades are way down in priority. I consider it a luxury, and I count the lerks on my team before I decide for or against it.
Spores are more or less the reason I lerked soooo so much when I first started playing. So much fun, especially if you do a good job... I remember getting 8 marine kills in one spore run in the corridor as they were pushing deposit from sorting by coming up behind and sporing the exit route They tried to run away when they saw the damage, but they all suffocated on my seed
Obviously spores tend to get lerks killed by shotguns, so this is a reason I miss early spores.
I never see them used/researched. Two reasons are that they are on biomass 6 and a sane Lerk won't just fly near middle/late game rines with shotguns and that the commanders research bilebomb and everything else before Lerk upgrades.
As I read that the alien research is more open now, I hoped that you could decide to research early leap or spores or other abilities to get more diversity into the games. But it is still the same old research. Are there plans to make the research more flexible again or will everything stay as it is cause it works fine balance wise? I would rly love to see early spores back and commanders who try out new tactics. Right now, every game is kinda similar.
In the compmod spores are ranged, making it much more powerful to use late game, but they are set on biomass 7 to compensate. Would be a good idea to implement into vanilla imo. That means even later spores yeah, but to be honest, it's sort of a cheap AoE spam weapon anyway.
Not sure why comm doesn't get PRes, but at 1/4th the rate of other players. Because if shit hits the fan and you have to jump out you end up being a resourcless wuss that can't buy anything at all.
Obviously spores tend to get lerks killed by shotguns by anything because they do not scale well with biomass, so this is a reason I miss early spores.
In the compmod spores are ranged, making it much more powerful to use late game...
That means even later spores yeah, but to be honest, it's sort of a cheap AoE spam weapon anyway.
Dreams..
Yea but if they were available in lieu of lerk bite, (w/ damage adjusted to values that worked as a Tier 1 weapon in beta) imagine how amazing it'd be for players learning how to play!
They'd peek in, shoot some spores, spike a little bit and then leave. Harassing like their role description implies.
Gone would be the days of players thinking they're a skulk with wings.
Additionally the lerk would still be a hell of a force to be reckoned with if it could provide adequate area denial like that early game, draining tres for medpacks, harrassing, and providing time for skulks. What's cool is that his weak HP wouldn't need to be increased, since he'd be less of a melee distance combatant and lerk bite could return as a nasty late game tech that comes with high risk and high reward - a design that makes sense when it's not 2 minutes into a round.
I was never good at melee lerking. I miss supporting my much more agile teammates as a lerk. Primal scream, spores, umbra. I didn't have to get on a level of melee as the others to have a good time playing NS1
In the compmod spores are ranged, making it much more powerful to use late game...
That means even later spores yeah, but to be honest, it's sort of a cheap AoE spam weapon anyway.
Dreams..
Yea but if they were available in lieu of lerk bite, (w/ damage adjusted to values that worked as a Tier 1 weapon in beta) imagine how amazing it'd be for players learning how to play!
They'd peek in, shoot some spores, spike a little bit and then leave. Harassing like their role description implies.
Gone would be the days of players thinking they're a skulk with wings.
Additionally the lerk would still be a hell of a force to be reckoned with if it could provide adequate area denial like that early game, draining tres for medpacks, harrassing, and providing time for skulks. What's cool is that his weak HP wouldn't need to be increased, since he'd be less of a melee distance combatant and lerk bite could return as a nasty late game tech that comes with high risk and high reward - a design that makes sense when it's not 2 minutes into a round.
/Dream
Being a hyper aggressive skulk/lerk biting and weaving in and out of combat is great fun... until shotguns make it more difficult. I lerk just for that experience.
Since this update, it now takes 15+ minutes to pracache. It went from about 1 minute to 15+. I used to be first to load a new map and be in the ready room, now I'm always last. WTF. please rollback to 267... that seems to be the consensus online...
Comments
I get that players will expect a consistent interaction from server to server (read playercount to playercount), but at some point the potential for twice (or sometimes more) the amount of players pushing a hive/GT/Powernode/IP needs to be taken into consideration.
In my mind, If there can be 10+ rifles (not even GLs) shooting a hive, it would go down about twice as fast (5x more marines that 6v6), meaning an adjustment to HP/Armor of the Hive would make sense to compensate and still allow a similar amount of time to respond.
I guess that the issue I'm pointing out is that in smaller games with less people, there is a much greater amount of time to respond and clear threats before severe damage is done.
Unless the idea is "if you let them get to your hive and cant wipe them out in less than 20 seconds, you DESERVE to loose that hive/game" which seems....unfun.
I'm not saying that the HP values should ever change during a live game, like if 5 people leave the values scale down (I don't think the extra IP goes away if the player count lowers), but if the potential at round start exists for 5+ more people to be attacking a structure, there should be some kind of scaling to allow the defending team the same amount of time to respond to the attack as in smaller games.
P.S. I understand that in an IDEAL world, if there are 10 people atacking, then there should be 10 people defending, and if you haven't seen the enemy team for a while or hear a beacon you should be aware of an imminent attack, or that you should always be scouting lanes, or that you should just make a counter push, ... but doesn't this seem like a little to much coordination to ask of a bunch of Pub scrubs who just want to have fun?
You seem to ignore the fact, that in larger games the map is more widely saturated by the players. You are infact MORE likely to route-block/scout properly. So I'd put it to you, that you actually by this nature have MORE time to react than you do in smaller games.
Keep in mind, to scout properly, you do not need to win a single engagements - you simply need to be present in the general area.
Oh and babblers were available at the start, and Gorges only cost 5Pres...
IT WAS PERFECT!!!!!
Then they started mucking it up... Gorges cost 8Pres now instead of 5... Gorges suddenly can drop tunnels at the start (worst change by far!)... Tunnels can only be placed on Nav mesh (instead of just fixing the 3-5 exploitable spots, they removed dozens upon dozens of legit useful spots)... Now we have less Pres (so essentially early game Gorges cost more) AND the tunnels have super low health...
What I wouldn't give for someone to make a mod reverting all the bad changes while keeping the good ones, then have a server run it...
Just saying.
Part of the reason for the cost increase was also that it was just too easy to gorge bilebomb suicide into the enemy base over and over again. So overall i like the gorge changes
They began on biomass 6 for good reasons
ah ok biomass 6... even better! I just knew they required research and weren't available quickly...
Seriously Gorge was such a blast to play when I first started NS2... These days if I go early Gorge there's a good 85-90% chance I'm going to die within the first minute unless I play like a huge coward and stay as far away from any Marines as possible... It's almost like throwing away all my res at the beginning of a game for nothing...
I guess the typical response would be "just get better" but with 1200+ hours and counting I've pretty much reached my skill ceiling.
Oh and again the super early Marine tech is ruining so many games.
I get the saturation thing, but it still relies on the player actually calling out what they saw, which is too much for most pubbers.
I suppose I could keep my eyes glued to the map, even during fights just to notice what players are not calling out.
Also, there is still the tendency in Pubs to pack together (everyone goes one side of the map) meaning there are still many lanes that don't get watched.
And even if they do get scouted, it still takes a very small amount of time to do unrepairable damage to a team.
But hey, If everyone thinks its OK for a hive/power node to have the same HP in a 6v6 as a 12v12 then I guess I've done all I can by suggesting it!
Spores.
I never see them used/researched. Two reasons are that they are on biomass 6 and a sane Lerk won't just fly near middle/late game rines with shotguns and that the commanders research bilebomb and everything else before Lerk upgrades.
As I read that the alien research is more open now, I hoped that you could decide to research early leap or spores or other abilities to get more diversity into the games. But it is still the same old research. Are there plans to make the research more flexible again or will everything stay as it is cause it works fine balance wise? I would rly love to see early spores back and commanders who try out new tactics. Right now, every game is kinda similar.
You know, I still occasionally get upset at how bad public players are and very rarely berate them. Sometimes though a competitive player will tell me, "Dude, it's just a public game. You can't expect them to be good.".
So why are we making these changes and expecting to force public players into being better when that isn't going to happen?
Again, those players were still "better" a year ago when it was previously at biomass 6 and rarely seen... holding a 70% alien win rate.
So forgive me, but may i suggest that your concern as far as balance goes, comes off a bit like a doomsayer - especially with winrates still favoring aliens. (more than what ns2stats reports)
Even if pubs are incapable of adapting like you propose, they will still be fine... but i believe they can, and will anyways.
I'm just going to wait a while before using ns2stats after this patch. I still see a lot of alien losses/concedes/f4 since this patch but that's anectodle.
Hell I played a game last night on Marines where we had zero teamwork, no coordination, and a commander who wasn't very good... We couldn't hold our phasegates, lost so much T.res it was mind boggling (at least 2 proto's went down while researching) and Aliens had tunnels at both of our natural RT's for most of the game... and we still won.
The fact that we were even able to get JP's after losing TWO proto's, all without holding more than 2-3 RT's max... it just felt broken.
I, as an american, take that as a compliment.
like he couldn't earn any res while out of com chair for 60 seconds?
or the commander cant spawn with res when hes inside the seat
i like evolving into gorge first then jumping into command chair , it makes it so i can build my own structures and clog upgrades but i dont know if thats exploiting the mechanic or if its supposed to allow that
It was both of those things. Comms started with 0 pres and getting in the cc/hive would stop you recieving pres for 1 minute after you get out. It was intended to discourage creative use of the additional pres (mines, gorge stuff in base etc) but the 60 second penalty was very harsh for times when someone else was required to jump in the chair and drop an IP or whatever if the actual comm was dead. At least I assume that's why they removed it.
comms still start with 0 pres now but at least if you're an alien you usually have enough spare time to get out and kill stuff and potentially save up enough pres for a lifeform.
Now this is an interesting post with good brainstorming flowing. Whether or not spores are valid with biomass 6 against shotguns is a valid point that I often look past. When I command, lerk upgrades are way down in priority. I consider it a luxury, and I count the lerks on my team before I decide for or against it.
Obviously spores tend to get lerks killed by shotguns, so this is a reason I miss early spores.
In the compmod spores are ranged, making it much more powerful to use late game, but they are set on biomass 7 to compensate. Would be a good idea to implement into vanilla imo. That means even later spores yeah, but to be honest, it's sort of a cheap AoE spam weapon anyway.
Yea but if they were available in lieu of lerk bite, (w/ damage adjusted to values that worked as a Tier 1 weapon in beta) imagine how amazing it'd be for players learning how to play!
They'd peek in, shoot some spores, spike a little bit and then leave. Harassing like their role description implies.
Gone would be the days of players thinking they're a skulk with wings.
Additionally the lerk would still be a hell of a force to be reckoned with if it could provide adequate area denial like that early game, draining tres for medpacks, harrassing, and providing time for skulks. What's cool is that his weak HP wouldn't need to be increased, since he'd be less of a melee distance combatant and lerk bite could return as a nasty late game tech that comes with high risk and high reward - a design that makes sense when it's not 2 minutes into a round.
/Dream