Comeback mechanic

ghostdlr

This aims to balance the last part of the game when you're stuck with 1 RT and your team cannot get out of the base . Since the enemies get 9 or 10 times more resources than you, most of the time it's almost impossible to turn the game around. They can get new weapons or life forms when they die so it's an endless cycle until you lose .

So my suggestion is pretty simple .
When you kill higher life forms, marines with advanced weapons/jetpacks or buildings, the whole team (or just the players that assist on a kill, including the commander) should receive a small amount of res .

The amount of res received should be calculated based on :
- The value of the life form or building you killed (you get more for killing an ONOS/EXO/HIVE)
- The NET WORTH difference between the teams .The net worth of a team is the SUM of unused resources each player has + the value of the weapons/life forms they currently have equipped.
This way, if you're far behind , and you manage to kill an onos or a hive , you might get the needed resources for a jetpack and hopefully turn the game around .
If you're far ahead, you won't get much . Your team already has RT's on the whole map and you have a steady flow of resources.

This will make the game more fun and also encourage team play .
If you're on the winning team you have to coordinate for a final push, instead of mindlessly suiciding one by one ( because why not ... you have plenty RES to buy new stuff if you die ).
If you're on the losing team , grouping up to kill an Onos/Fade or coordinating attacks on a hive could give you the resources you need to turn the game around .

ghostdlr

Dota 2 has a mechanic like this . It's pretty much what i described above . It came with an update last year ... before that, the amount of gold received was only based on levels and killing streaks .

When you kill somebody , the amound of xp/gold you receive is calculated based on:
- Level of the person you killed
- His killing streak
- Net worth difference between the teams

The amount of gold awarded for a kill is somewhere around 200 . But if you're far behind you can get 600-700 if the enemy killed has streak or even more than 1500 of he has a very high level (compared to your team) and huge killing streak .

It was pretty unbalanced at the beginning, there were lots of complaints, but it got tweaked with later updates and now it's a part of the game .


The result is ... people don't give up as often as they used to and games are more fun. They know if they try to defend the base and get a good team fight , they can turn the game around.

Soul_Rider

Res For Kills was abandoned long ago.

All that happens is the superior team, snowball the entire map, because of the extra RFK (because at the start, both teams are even, there is no great disparity, so they earn a lot of res at the start). Then when they hit the last base with the enemy inside, it takes 3 times as long to wipe them out because of RFK.

Comebacks struggle to happen in NS2 because NS2 is largely decided by player skill. If you gave a load of free RFK to a team on their last hive/base guess what happens?

They don't come back, because they are not as good as the other team, and even if the other team aren't earning RFK, they still own every other Harvester on the map and are probably overflowing with res. You just cause a 2.5 hour end game, until the outcome that was obvious hours before eventually passes.

The solution isn't RFK, it's getting more players so people can play against players of equal skill. That's where NS2 shines, evenly matched teams produce great games at any skill level, from rookie to pro.

The core issue around comebacks etc in NS2 is that the mechanics assume perfect skill balance between each player, and punish you heavily if you are not as good as your opponent. This level of skill gap is important in this kind of game, but you need the playerbase to support it.

ghostdlr

If teams are even, no one will get res for kills since the net worth of both teams will be even .
As the difference increases, the weaker team will receive something if they manage to kill some superior life forms (you shouldn't receive anything if you kill a skulk or a marine with no advanced weapons) .

That amount can be tweaked . It doesn't have to be much . Even 0.5 res per marine if they kill an onos would be fine .

You say they won't comeback because they are bad but i disagree . There are dozens of reason you might lose map control , not just the player skill ... maybe the commander makes bad calls , maybe team wastes too much time trying to push an enemy base. The outcome of a game is not determined only by individual player shooting skills .

Regarding longer games, something like that happened initially with dota 2 . But the gold/xp formula was tweaked and it's way more balanced now . Usually, the better team wins, even if they have a really bad start .
Knowing there is a chance to comeback usually has a positive impact on the game .

Nordic

The typical argument I see in see in these forums against comeback mechanics is simple and should be addressed in any proposed comeback mechanic idea.

Why introduce a comeback mechanic to extend an already lost game? Shouldn't the game just end sooner so we can start a new one?

Frozen

Detach cysting from being able to drop RTs, and remove power nodes being required for structures. The cysting and power should do totally different things to support the teams.

SantaClaws

Nordic wrote: »

The typical argument I see in see in these forums against comeback mechanics is simple and should be addressed in any proposed comeback mechanic idea.

Why introduce a comeback mechanic to extend an already lost game? Shouldn't the game just end sooner so we can start a new one?

Yea, I think @ghostdlr did a disservice to his own case by using endgame 1 rt marines as an example.

I think his idea is interesting, but it should be tweaked with the mid-game in mind - not the endgames where one faction is contained to 1 rt.

---

It makes sense if you consider that; a weaker team will naturally gather less resources -> meaning less tech -> less RFK rewards for the oppossing team.

But it's a lot of work I imagine - make a mod for it and let's put it to the test.

Nordic

Best way to test a mod is not to convince a bunch of forum goers, but to make a mod.

ghostdlr

Nordic wrote: »

The typical argument I see in see in these forums against comeback mechanics is simple and should be addressed in any proposed comeback mechanic idea.

Why introduce a comeback mechanic to extend an already lost game? Shouldn't the game just end sooner so we can start a new one?

That's what people going F4 when a game goes bad usually say .
Also, there is the option to concede . If people keep playing , they think they can still win ... so why would you give up ?

MaxAmus

In Ns1 this was always interesting - But i think in Ns2 maybe this should be an upgrade choice for marines / aliens ? creating more of options for teams to go for ? off course it would need tested and balanced. But an idea.