Limit on # of a certain class
humbaba
That Exciting Tales From the Frontline Guy Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 86Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
That Exciting Tales From the Frontline Guy Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 86Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
<div class="IPBDescription">To prevent silliness to the max</div>I am thinking (and I read a post that mentioned this)that maybe there should be limits on how many players on an alien team can become a certain class. While the idea of an entire team of level 5s is doubtful considering how unlikely it is that every player will be able to save enough rps (considering it costs rps to respawn), I can imagine a game against only flyers or builders, Somehow, this doesnt fit the character of the game in my mind.
If limits are placed on classes, it would drive the aliens to be more vicious, why? Because they would race to get enough kills and rps to be able to evolve into their desired class before a teammate takes up the spot. This would make the whole Darwinian Competition for the benifit of the group come out, making the title "Natural Selection" very accurate.
Also, No, I dont like the idea of an entire team of level 5s running around.
If limits are placed on classes, it would drive the aliens to be more vicious, why? Because they would race to get enough kills and rps to be able to evolve into their desired class before a teammate takes up the spot. This would make the whole Darwinian Competition for the benifit of the group come out, making the title "Natural Selection" very accurate.
Also, No, I dont like the idea of an entire team of level 5s running around.
Comments
I think it needs some tweaking, but an all around pretty good idea.
Deducting resource points for TKing is an excellent way of taking care of the issue for the aliens. I'd like nothing better than to see a lvl. 3 TK somebody and IMMEDIATELY de-evolve. (If he had jsut purchased the new form.) Of course, you'd have to kill him to do it, but that's all the better.
But what about our poor Marines? He who TKs may only wield a butter knife?
A hypothetical, if you will: If an alien team is ripping the marines a new one, then they should all be able to afford serious high level upgrades. An strong alien team should be able to show this force through their evolved status. A team of level 5s would be a direct indication of their dominance. Limiting this number would give the marines too much of an advantage in a losing situation, I think, as this type of deal would only come around in the late stages of a game.
Another hypothetical: Clan battle, and the alien team is trying to get their tech up as quick as possible. They can all evolve to builders and make all the available buildings and such to evolve highly. At the same time, they are also going to be lacking in defensiveness. Limiting the number of builders would certainly eliminate this strategy, even if the risks it involves would only allow it to work in the rarest of circumstances.
Oh, and I'm always angry when I'm not allowed to play as the class I want in any other game with limitations (DoD, TFC). So, personally, I don't want to see this.
i dont think it'll be an issue. the overuse of one class on the alien side will simply amplify the weaknesses they have, when you play brood war do you only make groups of devourers? no.
good commanders will recognize the patterns and frequency of alien types encountered and probably research/equip ppl to counter them. there may be certain instances where there is a lot of one class on a team, but this follows with the ebb and flow of all RTS games. aliens can now have the lvl4 blink ability, suddenly there is a lot of lvl4s. marines notice this and adapt accordingly.
As far as class limits go, we've gotta take this whole RTS deal into account here, since that's what NS is at its core. While I'm sure any decent RTS player could lecture you for quite a while on the value of diversifying your units, there's still something to be said for the Attack the Enemy With a Lot of Big Units At Once strategy. Greedo pretty much summed up all of my other thoughts with his post, so I'll not waste your time by repeating what he said.
On the flip side though, I do see the argument that a team which has the rps to reach that kind of evolution or "Upgrade-age" is probobly on the cusp of victory in the first place. Still, I think alien power will be based more around the existence of the three hives conferring special abilities, two hives giving less, and one giving the minimum. I dont like the idea of all the classes but lvl 4s and 5s becoming obselete in the late game. I think that no matter what happens, the team will need bobs for recon, 2s to build, lvl 3s for lightening fast accurate strikes, and 4s and 5s to do the bulk of the dirty work.
I guess, ultimately, class restrictions should not be in place. Originally, I thought, what if nobody wants to be a builder, than where will the upgrade structures be. Than I remembered, I'll be playing Marine, the less upgrades and balance these punks have, the easier it will be to smash them to pieces.
The root of my concern though is the same as expressed above. Will lower classes still have a purpose late in the game? Might players view them as only as waypoints to the "good stuff"? I suppose only time will tell. I not saying that class restrictions should be a version 1.0 implementation. However, it might be something to consider once we see how hoardes of internet players actually play the game after release. Hopefully, it will never be needed.
Don't think we have to fear for 16 level5's, don't think any map has that kind of amount of free space, those things are huge....
This would be a nice feature. Svencoop has a system like this, where the person who does the most damage gets more points.
Back on topic:
People who would like to fly and snipe would still be lvl3 etc. I don't think we have to worry to much about everyone becoming lvl5. But if that was to be the case, so what? It be fun trying to hunt down lots of lvl5s too. I just don't think that it'll be any problem.