Just wanted to add something to that subject which I obviously agree on.
While I clearly feel its relatively easy to *balance* the lifeforms to accommodate such a partitioned resource economy, I don't think it would ever be as fun as NS1 to actually play said adjusted lifeforms.
The sense of playing a powerfully impacting role such as in NS1, cannot be allowed to occur for the sake of balance, if you allow for an unrestricted amount of them, as is done in NS2.
Another downside besides missing this fun aspect, is that again in order to balance having multiple of them you have to make them easier to deal with / kill, often creating a "glass cannon" scenario ... which makes learning the lifeform that much more difficult due to role confusion and the limited time alive during engagements with which to learn from.
So, it's not as fun and it's more difficult to learn, two very big downsides.
That being said, I would still love to test different resource models (there's a lot of ideas, some very simple) before going down the path of reversion / no alien commander. If for nothing else but to carry on that 1/3 new, 1/3 improved, 1/3 brought over from NS1 goal.
In StarCraft, the early game is decided by build orders and specific builds tailored to specific maps or strategies versus each racial combination. In the modern HotS TvZ, you can primarily choose from a few builds:
- Reaper Expand
- 2Rax Pressure
- 1Rax Gasless Expand
- CC First
There aren't many deviations from these starting builds but depending on how the game plays out, they can diverse into other builds like hellion banshee pressure, early CC and 2nd Engi bay into double upgrades, early WM drops, you get the picture and this hasn't changed much since release. New builds/strategies are usable when units are changed and buffed but the core strategies remain the same.
NS2 is no different in this regard...
I agree that in SC2 the early game tends to be uncreative, and on top of that, games tend to snowball quite early, hence less importance of strategy. NS2 isn't quite the same imo however, but do show some of the tendencies you pointed out.
That, along with the high amount of toxic players, is why most players stopped playing SC2. I don't think this was as big a problem in SC1, but I'm not sure since I was quite unskilled when I used to play SC1.
The biomass and ability research was introduced cause the things you want now.
We had alientech bound to an hive (like Fade @ 2nd hive) and it didnt work.
Thats exact what i mentioned above, people forget why things where introduced or didnt know they where part of the game in the past.
If you unlock abilitys automatic after a hive is up, you have the techplosion wich was a huge problem in the past.
If aliens losing all there tech cause a hive is killed, is also a horrible mechanic,
You say this thread is not about balance?
Well it is: you cant change or introduce new gamechanics without balancing the whole game around it.
"and also the fact that much of the tech is less frequently seen now than it was in the past prior to 250"
The only tech that you dont see often are:
- webs
- catpacks (pub)
- nanoshield (pub)
- flamer (competitive)
- exo (competitive)
You are only one of them who still thinking 249 was the perfect NS2 version and you dont want to see the issues of 249 any more.
Alien tech was not bound in the way I am suggesting it should be since you had to individually research the abilities back then just like you do now, except now we've added more steps(biomass) in between. In fact Sewlek even tested having abilities unlock automatically with biomass research and required no individual ability research which was probably a better system than now since all that tech is getting unlocked and used by people more often than now.
No the thread isn't about balance directly but of course balance is an important factor, it simply is not the primary issue that I raised which was that there is a lack of variety in the game and we aren't seeing a lot of the tech due to the current way the game is designed. Balance flows from that but it is not the principle issue I wish to address. In fact we could remove all non skulk and lmg tech and could have a balanced game and my point would be even more valid.
As for thinking I want to bring back 249, well that is just an incorrect assumption. Heaven forbid people think that some aspects of the game may have been better in the past or in ns1.
What i dont understand is: Simplifying the game end in more tactical variations?
Makes no sense to me.
"Currently you will not see many abilities due to them being very limited in their use and thus never researched"
This is complete nonsense btw. Dont know on what servers you are playing.
It isn't nonsense mate, since that has been my experience on Australian and USA servers in pugs, pub and comp. How many iterations of the same game do I need to play before that statement is accepted? Low hanging fruit comment of "what servers are you playing on", is equivalent of me dismissing you because you are in div 2 ensl.
In the last year or more and especially compared to how it was in the past I haven't or have rarely seen exo, jp, tier 3 alien abilities or spores. But more importantly, the games tend to unfold in exactly the same manner every time, same engagements same everything, especially in competitive.
Because some features aren't as viable as others does not necessarily mean making them freely available (as was done for a time in the past) will change the frequency of their use, nor does it imply a lack of strategies or options... just a lack of viable ones, or at least it highlights priorities.
There will always be favorite or more viable strategies in any game involving any degree of strategic choice. That's pretty much inescapable, as someone pointed out regarding CS' primary choices of AK, M4, and AWP.
However, unlike CS, I think there's actually only a few features and choices that are not viable - in that they are not as prioritized or just come out too late, naturally. Stab, Webs, and spores are all examples but they also all suffer from individual issues, besides all being late game abilities.
--Stab just isn't worth the risk of a 2 second wind up - in that same time frame normal swipe does 225 dmg vs stab's 160.
--Webs are highly situational and cost 1 pres each to use!
--Spores just highlight where to shoot (ever seen contrails in the sky?) an incredibly fragile lifeform that doesn't scale well in a W3 environment.
Being late game abilities lessens the chance of them being seen before marines concede due to a lack of comeback mechanics. (and therefore somewhat forgives the importance of their issues)
I could go on about such non viable mechanics / priorities, but most of the hive types and overall alien tech tree is pretty solid, imo.
So changing the lategame ones still wouldn't change the frequency that they're seen that much considering the aforementioned lack of comeback abilities and artificial timers.
And even changing a priority between early tech, like say leap or BB wouldn't help because of how situationally dependent they can be. Even choosing PGs versus W2 can be map dependent sometimes.
I think the real issue is people sheepishly following others' strats... too often I see the same exact build order with no imagination in execution, fearful of taking risks.
Then one day i'll watch a high division competitive match with two PGs in Hub that blows my mind and changes the game for everyone.
Higher tier alien abilities being unlocked automatically based on hive count was never the cause of the tech explosion problems, it has always been caused by either lifeform timings or weapon researches (mainly shotguns). The true solution to the tech explosion problem has always been either massively altering the classes/weapons to REQUIRE cooperation, or changing the resource system. The biggest problems with changing the classes to be dependent is that it doesn't scale with lower player counts well and it hurts the 'fun' aspect for the individual. Forcing teams to always have good compositions to be effective would require more grouping up, and would prove difficult if you were not able to consistently field 3+ players on multiple fronts. I would expect that you would want 8+ players per team for a system like that. It would also increase the situations where as an individual you are completely powerless, which can make the gameplay much less enjoyable. Having something like a fade or onos which is more of a side grade versus an upgrade as something that you spend a significant amount of your resources on would not feel very rewarding either.
NS commanding has never been, and most likely will never be, a traditional RTS type experience. There is simply not a deep enough tech tree for either side to ever work in this method. Baring major changes to how weapon/armor upgrades work it most likely will never have much depth. I honestly cannot think of how there was more tech used pre 250, most alien rounds I remember had almost no tech researched beyond carapace and maybe blink.
As for B250/the balance team and the resulting changes, it’s important to remember that the end result still needed to fit within the bounds of what UWE wanted for NS2. There were quite a few changes that were either off limits, or simply out of range of what could be done on a game which had been commercially released already. I always hoped that medpacks would be made more expensive, but I think that that change needed to come with some basic movement enhancements for marines and skulks.
Unfortunately many things in NS2 are at a point where they have been made overly complex for the sake of balance, and the true way to fix them would require changes to the core gameplay. If something like that was to be attempted again, the #1 priority would need to be determining what the end goal is with regards to the resource system, RTS aspects and class/weapon roles. Making any changes without making that decision is somewhat pointless now, and I think that is a part of why compmod struggled with direction. There are some small changes that could be made to some specific items, but those wont improve the overall replayability of NS2.
FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
edited January 2015
Can we try a mod where cysts and powernodes don't exist? I think they suck more fun out of the game than anything else.
edit: This seems out of place a little bit, but I do feel this holds back build orders and strategy in a major and majorly boring way.
Edit2: I always felt that cysts should have been a more optional build path and that the abilities available to the alien commander would be expanded. So instead of dropping a crag and shift fort thing with a whip, you have this choice to creep around the map and use active abilities (alien comm is pretty damn boring right now). Could be a similar idea for powernodes on marines (since no one likes when this game is asymetrical).
I always felt that cysts should have been a more optional build path and that the abilities available to the alien commander would be expanded. So instead of dropping a crag and shift fort thing with a whip, you have this choice to creep around the map and use active abilities (alien comm is pretty damn boring right now). Could be a similar idea for powernodes on marines (since no one likes when this game is asymetrical).
Srsly the alien comm has no option to use active abilities?
You mean like mucous, enzyme, hallucination?
You mean like rupture and bone wall?
I always felt that cysts should have been a more optional build path and that the abilities available to the alien commander would be expanded. So instead of dropping a crag and shift fort thing with a whip, you have this choice to creep around the map and use active abilities (alien comm is pretty damn boring right now). Could be a similar idea for powernodes on marines (since no one likes when this game is asymetrical).
Srsly the alien comm has no option to use active abilities?
You mean like mucous, enzyme, hallucination?
You mean like rupture and bone wall?
Well first off I have to say WOW! some very good thoughts and points throughout this thread and you have all been so civil, so congratz on that. While the CDT is working on cleaning the current code base and working to make the existing foundation NS2 more stable and efficient, I want you all to know that down the road I believe there can still be changes like those that are talked about in this thread. How or why? well that's a discussion for later, but NS2 I believe will continue to evolve over this next few months and threads like these only work to inspire a lot of thought on the subject. Thanks again everyone, always proving why you're the best community!
I could go on about such non viable mechanics / priorities, but most of the hive types...
There's like... THREE of them, lol. "Most."
You must've missed the comma, indicating that I was speaking about both tech trees as well as every non viable mechanic. (for instance, stab, webs and spores aren't hive types - are they?)
KanehJoin Date: 2012-12-11Member: 174783Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
Like Dragon said, NS2 does not and will never have a deep enough tech tree to have meaningful and varied choices.
About the only really significant choice is starting shade hive vs crag/shift, and even that choice leads to the same midgame. You can't go super shade on 2 hives, it just rejoins the other hives type and you get relatively standard shade+crag 2 hive play.
There are of course some really off the wall cheese types of plays (all in sg rushes, gorge rushes, early turret spam at the alien naturals), but there is only one type of standard play because the tech tree has only one main trunk with minor branches that just rejoin the main path.
Unless you essentially revamp the entire way the game works from the most basic things, I think we're stuck with what we've got and so 90+% of games will be the same standard play.
Like Dragon said, NS2 does not and will never have a deep enough tech tree to have meaningful and varied choices.
About the only really significant choice is starting shade hive vs crag/shift, and even that choice leads to the same midgame. You can't go super shade on 2 hives, it just rejoins the other hives type and you get relatively standard shade+crag 2 hive play.
There are of course some really off the wall cheese types of plays (all in sg rushes, gorge rushes, early turret spam at the alien naturals), but there is only one type of standard play because the tech tree has only one main trunk with minor branches that just rejoin the main path.
Unless you essentially revamp the entire way the game works from the most basic things, I think we're stuck with what we've got and so 90+% of games will be the same standard play.
Name me a build order in starcraft outside cheesy timing attacks that involves neglecting your upgrades.
If you play chess, you will find that certain "mid-game" positions repeat, even though the openings may vary. That's the nature of midgames, both teams are actively trying to get to that comfortable position. It is NOT a sign that the game lacks depth or directions.
Cannon_FodderAUSBrisbane, AUJoin Date: 2013-06-23Member: 185664Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
edited January 2015
Hi all,
Lets be honest about the amount of possible combinations of tech in the mid game:
If Comp. teams are evenly matched, it will be fade, lerk vs. w2/a2 SG marines with full upgrade of one hive type and probably metabolize.
In pubs, its anyone's guess because the skill levels in those games are so much more diverse.
I don't watch comp games to see the divergence in tech (they don't have much meaning), as comp players find the most efficient play in terms of damage vs. res spent. I am looking for clever positions and punishment of the other team for being out of position. I am not sure how it plays out as a player, but as a spectator, I love the fact that I see incredible team work to take down life forms (marines) OR pack play a small group of marines (aliens) then over run a position. Or to force a beacon etc... (I do wish we had a better spec. system for replays). I would love to see how marine moved on a first person perspective or how he/she died when a pack of skulks bear down on the marine.
The tech tree could vary a little pub play, but most Comms just follow the 'cookie cutter' build - phase first or upgrades first. The point is, with res flowing in fairly fast (3-5 res nodes capped), you could if you didn't spam meds get most tech to the mid game in the first 8 minutes.
The things that gets me to like this game is pushing and pull of territory capture and the back and forth nature of the game when your team (in pubs) suddenly just had a moment where everyone worked to the plan (or the person yelling the loudest) and it comes off, and you retake the tech point. I play for those small moments.
True that NS2 has a small tech tree, but there are still meaningful choices. Due to the fast pacing, those few choices are absolutely critical in an *evenly* matched game. If you had enough map control & res to do everything almost at once, then it wasn't evenly matched. I just Comm'd one of those excellent pub games on Veil that illustrates this.
Early game I chose PGs first over Arms Lab, due to large team size mechanics and travel distances. With the same res at that time, alternative would have been arms lab upgrades.
Mid Game we only had 1/1, no shotguns, no AA. I chose to commit to an ARC push on Nano and made the team defend that and existing RTs, no other pushes. Lerks/Fades were of limited use despite no shotties as concentrated marine defence nullified their hit and run capabilities. This worked, but an alternative with the same res that could have been chosen was go for W3 and weapons.
Late Game I went for AA & JPs over W3/A3 for JPs to kill vent-hiding gorges in skylights & Nano, securing our PGs & Res. JPs also allowed us to harrass Cargo hive very effectively. An alternative with the same res would have been to full tech W3/A3, or setting up a 2nd functional base with back-up arms lab as alien base rush can cause a marine inevitable victory into a sudden loss.
The things that gets me to like this game is pushing and pull of territory capture and the back and forth nature of the game when your team (in pubs) suddenly just had a moment where everyone worked to the plan (or the person yelling the loudest) and it comes off, and you retake the tech point. I play for those small moments.
100% agree this. Knowing when to switch focus from left side to east side, making a feint become the main push unexpectedly, going with the flow in pub games and knowing when to capitalise, knowing when to give up a losing front rather than feed good res after bad, knowing when to call for a push (bad push = all attackers dead = defenders kill forward base, versus letting defenders exhaust themselves then pushing in when all are respawning), while maintaining situational awareness of rest of map so 1 commando marine/skulk doesn't take out all the res and cause the game to be lost.
This is what makes me keep coming back to Natural Selection for 12 years, despite going through a few different life phases and a whole hoard of AAA games that I play once through and never come back to again.
True that NS2 has a small tech tree, but there are still meaningful choices. Due to the fast pacing, those few choices are absolutely critical in an *evenly* matched game. If you had enough map control & res to do everything almost at once, then it wasn't evenly matched. I just Comm'd one of those excellent pub games on Veil that illustrates this.
Early game I chose PGs first over Arms Lab, due to large team size mechanics and travel distances. With the same res at that time, alternative would have been arms lab upgrades.
Mid Game we only had 1/1, no shotguns, no AA. I chose to commit to an ARC push on Nano and made the team defend that and existing RTs, no other pushes. Lerks/Fades were of limited use despite no shotties as concentrated marine defence nullified their hit and run capabilities. This worked, but an alternative with the same res that could have been chosen was go for W3 and weapons.
Late Game I went for AA & JPs over W3/A3 for JPs to kill vent-hiding gorges in skylights & Nano, securing our PGs & Res. JPs also allowed us to harrass Cargo hive very effectively. An alternative with the same res would have been to full tech W3/A3, or setting up a 2nd functional base with back-up arms lab as alien base rush can cause a marine inevitable victory into a sudden loss.
I can see what you are saying, but what you described is just phase tech first with all the tech researched eventually because the game went for that long.
If you were dealing with an alien team that had better lerks and fades you would have been at a disadvantage when they came out because you didn't get upgrades. And that's the thing, I don't think there is a good way to do anything but focus on upgrades and weapons with phase tech coming out in the mid game relative to how much res you have. It just puts your marines at such a disadvantage when in engagements when lerks and fades come out. Phase gates aren't going to help you kill lifeforms usually.
My view on the game is pretty simple though, I have my own tech path that I roughly stick to when commanding and if we lose, it isn't my strat, its the team shooting and positioning. It never really is the strat, because the tech paths don't matter much in this game as long as you have 1/1 shotguns by lerk/fade.
That isn't a bad thing either though, I think most of the fun from this game comes from the unique gameplay experiences that come from individual games rather than finding new strats and playing this like an RTS. As you said, a lot of it is just reacting to the other teams movements or causing them to react to you, and that will be unique every single game. So are cookie cutter tech paths actually such a bad thing?
I think most of the fun from this game comes from the unique gameplay experiences that come from individual games rather than finding new strats and playing this like an RTS. As you said, a lot of it is just reacting to the other teams movements or causing them to react to you, and that will be unique every single game. So are cookie cutter tech paths actually such a bad thing?
This sums up my sentiments on this topic.
From Flayra's high level design document:
"-- NS1 was a real-time strategy game with a shooter interface, NS2 is a shooter first, and RTS second (more people experience it as a shooter than an RTS).
-- Knowing that a team is executing a strategy should give an advantage to an equally skilled team "
There will always be preferred build orders, but the situation will dictate the order regardless, and that is where the variety comes from.
Can we try a mod where cysts and powernodes don't exist? I think they suck more fun out of the game than anything else.
edit: This seems out of place a little bit, but I do feel this holds back build orders and strategy in a major and majorly boring way.
Edit2: I always felt that cysts should have been a more optional build path and that the abilities available to the alien commander would be expanded. So instead of dropping a crag and shift fort thing with a whip, you have this choice to creep around the map and use active abilities (alien comm is pretty damn boring right now). Could be a similar idea for powernodes on marines (since no one likes when this game is asymetrical).
if you think alien comm is boring you're doing it wrong.
Can we try a mod where cysts and powernodes don't exist? I think they suck more fun out of the game than anything else.
edit: This seems out of place a little bit, but I do feel this holds back build orders and strategy in a major and majorly boring way.
Edit2: I always felt that cysts should have been a more optional build path and that the abilities available to the alien commander would be expanded. So instead of dropping a crag and shift fort thing with a whip, you have this choice to creep around the map and use active abilities (alien comm is pretty damn boring right now). Could be a similar idea for powernodes on marines (since no one likes when this game is asymetrical).
if you think alien comm is boring you're doing it wrong.
lol, so true. on a comp style game (6v6) , the alien comm is probably out of the hive alot, on a pub, with so much happening (many fronts, the alien comm is always doing stuff). If you also spam the drifter ability, then you are kept busy. Not to mention people bugging you about research, and you are at the same time trying to herd the bunch of cats (team) to execute your strategy (or at least save that res node ONE marine is hacking down with an axe).
Can we try a mod where cysts and powernodes don't exist? I think they suck more fun out of the game than anything else.
edit: This seems out of place a little bit, but I do feel this holds back build orders and strategy in a major and majorly boring way.
Edit2: I always felt that cysts should have been a more optional build path and that the abilities available to the alien commander would be expanded. So instead of dropping a crag and shift fort thing with a whip, you have this choice to creep around the map and use active abilities (alien comm is pretty damn boring right now). Could be a similar idea for powernodes on marines (since no one likes when this game is asymetrical).
if you think alien comm is boring you're doing it wrong.
This will sound sarcastic, but I mean it. Thank goodness people like you exist
I always felt that cysts should have been a more optional build path and that the abilities available to the alien commander would be expanded. So instead of dropping a crag and shift fort thing with a whip, you have this choice to creep around the map and use active abilities (alien comm is pretty damn boring right now). Could be a similar idea for powernodes on marines (since no one likes when this game is asymetrical).
Srsly the alien comm has no option to use active abilities?
You mean like mucous, enzyme, hallucination?
You mean like rupture and bone wall?
Oh I forgot to mention whips, contamination, echo, ink, heal wave... Even cysting in and of itself can be seen as an active ability when used to bait the reload of an unsuspecting marine.
So there, I've listed 10 different active abilities that can skew engagements in the favour of your team to varying degrees of significance if they are used correctly. If you dont understand by this point, well I honestly dont know what to say to you.
I always felt that cysts should have been a more optional build path and that the abilities available to the alien commander would be expanded. So instead of dropping a crag and shift fort thing with a whip, you have this choice to creep around the map and use active abilities (alien comm is pretty damn boring right now). Could be a similar idea for powernodes on marines (since no one likes when this game is asymetrical).
Srsly the alien comm has no option to use active abilities?
You mean like mucous, enzyme, hallucination?
You mean like rupture and bone wall?
Oh I forgot to mention whips, contamination, echo, ink, heal wave... Even cysting in and of itself can be seen as an active ability when used to bait the reload of an unsuspecting marine.
So there, I've listed 10 different active abilities that can skew engagements in the favour of your team to varying degrees of significance if they are used correctly. If you dont understand by this point, well I honestly dont know what to say to you.
Comments
Just wanted to add something to that subject which I obviously agree on.
While I clearly feel its relatively easy to *balance* the lifeforms to accommodate such a partitioned resource economy, I don't think it would ever be as fun as NS1 to actually play said adjusted lifeforms.
The sense of playing a powerfully impacting role such as in NS1, cannot be allowed to occur for the sake of balance, if you allow for an unrestricted amount of them, as is done in NS2.
Another downside besides missing this fun aspect, is that again in order to balance having multiple of them you have to make them easier to deal with / kill, often creating a "glass cannon" scenario ... which makes learning the lifeform that much more difficult due to role confusion and the limited time alive during engagements with which to learn from.
So, it's not as fun and it's more difficult to learn, two very big downsides.
That being said, I would still love to test different resource models (there's a lot of ideas, some very simple) before going down the path of reversion / no alien commander. If for nothing else but to carry on that 1/3 new, 1/3 improved, 1/3 brought over from NS1 goal.
I agree that in SC2 the early game tends to be uncreative, and on top of that, games tend to snowball quite early, hence less importance of strategy. NS2 isn't quite the same imo however, but do show some of the tendencies you pointed out.
That, along with the high amount of toxic players, is why most players stopped playing SC2. I don't think this was as big a problem in SC1, but I'm not sure since I was quite unskilled when I used to play SC1.
Alien tech was not bound in the way I am suggesting it should be since you had to individually research the abilities back then just like you do now, except now we've added more steps(biomass) in between. In fact Sewlek even tested having abilities unlock automatically with biomass research and required no individual ability research which was probably a better system than now since all that tech is getting unlocked and used by people more often than now.
No the thread isn't about balance directly but of course balance is an important factor, it simply is not the primary issue that I raised which was that there is a lack of variety in the game and we aren't seeing a lot of the tech due to the current way the game is designed. Balance flows from that but it is not the principle issue I wish to address. In fact we could remove all non skulk and lmg tech and could have a balanced game and my point would be even more valid.
As for thinking I want to bring back 249, well that is just an incorrect assumption. Heaven forbid people think that some aspects of the game may have been better in the past or in ns1.
It isn't nonsense mate, since that has been my experience on Australian and USA servers in pugs, pub and comp. How many iterations of the same game do I need to play before that statement is accepted? Low hanging fruit comment of "what servers are you playing on", is equivalent of me dismissing you because you are in div 2 ensl.
In the last year or more and especially compared to how it was in the past I haven't or have rarely seen exo, jp, tier 3 alien abilities or spores. But more importantly, the games tend to unfold in exactly the same manner every time, same engagements same everything, especially in competitive.
Because some features aren't as viable as others does not necessarily mean making them freely available (as was done for a time in the past) will change the frequency of their use, nor does it imply a lack of strategies or options... just a lack of viable ones, or at least it highlights priorities.
There will always be favorite or more viable strategies in any game involving any degree of strategic choice. That's pretty much inescapable, as someone pointed out regarding CS' primary choices of AK, M4, and AWP.
However, unlike CS, I think there's actually only a few features and choices that are not viable - in that they are not as prioritized or just come out too late, naturally. Stab, Webs, and spores are all examples but they also all suffer from individual issues, besides all being late game abilities.
--Stab just isn't worth the risk of a 2 second wind up - in that same time frame normal swipe does 225 dmg vs stab's 160.
--Webs are highly situational and cost 1 pres each to use!
--Spores just highlight where to shoot (ever seen contrails in the sky?) an incredibly fragile lifeform that doesn't scale well in a W3 environment.
Being late game abilities lessens the chance of them being seen before marines concede due to a lack of comeback mechanics. (and therefore somewhat forgives the importance of their issues)
I could go on about such non viable mechanics / priorities, but most of the hive types and overall alien tech tree is pretty solid, imo.
So changing the lategame ones still wouldn't change the frequency that they're seen that much considering the aforementioned lack of comeback abilities and artificial timers.
And even changing a priority between early tech, like say leap or BB wouldn't help because of how situationally dependent they can be. Even choosing PGs versus W2 can be map dependent sometimes.
I think the real issue is people sheepishly following others' strats... too often I see the same exact build order with no imagination in execution, fearful of taking risks.
Then one day i'll watch a high division competitive match with two PGs in Hub that blows my mind and changes the game for everyone.
NS commanding has never been, and most likely will never be, a traditional RTS type experience. There is simply not a deep enough tech tree for either side to ever work in this method. Baring major changes to how weapon/armor upgrades work it most likely will never have much depth. I honestly cannot think of how there was more tech used pre 250, most alien rounds I remember had almost no tech researched beyond carapace and maybe blink.
As for B250/the balance team and the resulting changes, it’s important to remember that the end result still needed to fit within the bounds of what UWE wanted for NS2. There were quite a few changes that were either off limits, or simply out of range of what could be done on a game which had been commercially released already. I always hoped that medpacks would be made more expensive, but I think that that change needed to come with some basic movement enhancements for marines and skulks.
Unfortunately many things in NS2 are at a point where they have been made overly complex for the sake of balance, and the true way to fix them would require changes to the core gameplay. If something like that was to be attempted again, the #1 priority would need to be determining what the end goal is with regards to the resource system, RTS aspects and class/weapon roles. Making any changes without making that decision is somewhat pointless now, and I think that is a part of why compmod struggled with direction. There are some small changes that could be made to some specific items, but those wont improve the overall replayability of NS2.
edit: This seems out of place a little bit, but I do feel this holds back build orders and strategy in a major and majorly boring way.
Edit2: I always felt that cysts should have been a more optional build path and that the abilities available to the alien commander would be expanded. So instead of dropping a crag and shift fort thing with a whip, you have this choice to creep around the map and use active abilities (alien comm is pretty damn boring right now). Could be a similar idea for powernodes on marines (since no one likes when this game is asymetrical).
There's like... THREE of them, lol. "Most."
Srsly the alien comm has no option to use active abilities?
You mean like mucous, enzyme, hallucination?
You mean like rupture and bone wall?
About the only really significant choice is starting shade hive vs crag/shift, and even that choice leads to the same midgame. You can't go super shade on 2 hives, it just rejoins the other hives type and you get relatively standard shade+crag 2 hive play.
There are of course some really off the wall cheese types of plays (all in sg rushes, gorge rushes, early turret spam at the alien naturals), but there is only one type of standard play because the tech tree has only one main trunk with minor branches that just rejoin the main path.
Unless you essentially revamp the entire way the game works from the most basic things, I think we're stuck with what we've got and so 90+% of games will be the same standard play.
We will be owned by the laws of physics. Latency issues are already on the edge of unplayable.
reference: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/135669/limit-lag-compensation-to-300-ms#latest
Name me a build order in starcraft outside cheesy timing attacks that involves neglecting your upgrades.
If you play chess, you will find that certain "mid-game" positions repeat, even though the openings may vary. That's the nature of midgames, both teams are actively trying to get to that comfortable position. It is NOT a sign that the game lacks depth or directions.
Lets be honest about the amount of possible combinations of tech in the mid game:
If Comp. teams are evenly matched, it will be fade, lerk vs. w2/a2 SG marines with full upgrade of one hive type and probably metabolize.
In pubs, its anyone's guess because the skill levels in those games are so much more diverse.
I don't watch comp games to see the divergence in tech (they don't have much meaning), as comp players find the most efficient play in terms of damage vs. res spent. I am looking for clever positions and punishment of the other team for being out of position. I am not sure how it plays out as a player, but as a spectator, I love the fact that I see incredible team work to take down life forms (marines) OR pack play a small group of marines (aliens) then over run a position. Or to force a beacon etc... (I do wish we had a better spec. system for replays). I would love to see how marine moved on a first person perspective or how he/she died when a pack of skulks bear down on the marine.
The tech tree could vary a little pub play, but most Comms just follow the 'cookie cutter' build - phase first or upgrades first. The point is, with res flowing in fairly fast (3-5 res nodes capped), you could if you didn't spam meds get most tech to the mid game in the first 8 minutes.
The things that gets me to like this game is pushing and pull of territory capture and the back and forth nature of the game when your team (in pubs) suddenly just had a moment where everyone worked to the plan (or the person yelling the loudest) and it comes off, and you retake the tech point. I play for those small moments.
Early game I chose PGs first over Arms Lab, due to large team size mechanics and travel distances. With the same res at that time, alternative would have been arms lab upgrades.
Mid Game we only had 1/1, no shotguns, no AA. I chose to commit to an ARC push on Nano and made the team defend that and existing RTs, no other pushes. Lerks/Fades were of limited use despite no shotties as concentrated marine defence nullified their hit and run capabilities. This worked, but an alternative with the same res that could have been chosen was go for W3 and weapons.
Late Game I went for AA & JPs over W3/A3 for JPs to kill vent-hiding gorges in skylights & Nano, securing our PGs & Res. JPs also allowed us to harrass Cargo hive very effectively. An alternative with the same res would have been to full tech W3/A3, or setting up a 2nd functional base with back-up arms lab as alien base rush can cause a marine inevitable victory into a sudden loss.
100% agree this. Knowing when to switch focus from left side to east side, making a feint become the main push unexpectedly, going with the flow in pub games and knowing when to capitalise, knowing when to give up a losing front rather than feed good res after bad, knowing when to call for a push (bad push = all attackers dead = defenders kill forward base, versus letting defenders exhaust themselves then pushing in when all are respawning), while maintaining situational awareness of rest of map so 1 commando marine/skulk doesn't take out all the res and cause the game to be lost.
This is what makes me keep coming back to Natural Selection for 12 years, despite going through a few different life phases and a whole hoard of AAA games that I play once through and never come back to again.
If you were dealing with an alien team that had better lerks and fades you would have been at a disadvantage when they came out because you didn't get upgrades. And that's the thing, I don't think there is a good way to do anything but focus on upgrades and weapons with phase tech coming out in the mid game relative to how much res you have. It just puts your marines at such a disadvantage when in engagements when lerks and fades come out. Phase gates aren't going to help you kill lifeforms usually.
My view on the game is pretty simple though, I have my own tech path that I roughly stick to when commanding and if we lose, it isn't my strat, its the team shooting and positioning. It never really is the strat, because the tech paths don't matter much in this game as long as you have 1/1 shotguns by lerk/fade.
That isn't a bad thing either though, I think most of the fun from this game comes from the unique gameplay experiences that come from individual games rather than finding new strats and playing this like an RTS. As you said, a lot of it is just reacting to the other teams movements or causing them to react to you, and that will be unique every single game. So are cookie cutter tech paths actually such a bad thing?
From Flayra's high level design document:
"-- NS1 was a real-time strategy game with a shooter interface, NS2 is a shooter first, and RTS second (more people experience it as a shooter than an RTS).
-- Knowing that a team is executing a strategy should give an advantage to an equally skilled team "
There will always be preferred build orders, but the situation will dictate the order regardless, and that is where the variety comes from.
if you think alien comm is boring you're doing it wrong.
lol, so true. on a comp style game (6v6) , the alien comm is probably out of the hive alot, on a pub, with so much happening (many fronts, the alien comm is always doing stuff). If you also spam the drifter ability, then you are kept busy. Not to mention people bugging you about research, and you are at the same time trying to herd the bunch of cats (team) to execute your strategy (or at least save that res node ONE marine is hacking down with an axe).
This will sound sarcastic, but I mean it. Thank goodness people like you exist
So there, I've listed 10 different active abilities that can skew engagements in the favour of your team to varying degrees of significance if they are used correctly. If you dont understand by this point, well I honestly dont know what to say to you.
You DO have the choice to creep around the map and use active abilities though, as I've demonstrated above.
Just because you choose not to, doesn't mean alien commander is boring, it means you're boring.
@meatmachine srsly