Gentlemen - gentlemen, less retoric and more thoughtfulness, please. I am sure you are all fine players and great human beings. Casting insults to each others characters back and forth only detracts from your arguements.
It would be interesting if we all played chess instead. The forum would be about "the queen is just too powerful - she should only be able to move 3 squares" or "I need three rooks because you got to go first."
The game is as the game is. Life isn't always fair - neither is NS. How can you wax poetic about the unfairness of seige cannons while ignoring that aliens can be cloaked, or superfast, or blink, or regenerate . . .
One of the great strengths of NS is that the teams are so different. If you want a perfectly balanced game, then the two teams must be pretty much identical. NS has very different teams, and each team must be played differently. If one particular group of players has not developed a strategy to deal with one particular counter-strategy (i.e. seige cannons) then get out there and play with other folks who have. You will find there are folks out there winning regularly as aliens (I know, I often play as marine, and I certainly don't always win) <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo--> Of course, if I did, I would probably get bored. As of now, after a few hundred games, I'm not bored yet.
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
<!--QuoteBegin--Talesin+Nov 29 2002, 05:21 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Talesin @ Nov 29 2002, 05:21 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Siege Turrets, I have heard numerous reports as to why they are now unbalanced. All of them agree that it was a shortly-before-release tweak that had done it. One says that they used to be line-of-sight only. Another, that their effective radius was increased by a good amount. The latter *would* render them 'balanced'. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> The maps wasn't designed with long-range siege turrets in mind. Cutting the range with about 20-30% will make bast and nancy playable again. Yea, mess hall in nancy is insane as well - you can cover about half the resources in the game with siege turrets controlled by TF's in mess hall.
Given all that though, marines still manage to lose the game more often than the aliens (given the quality of play, I hesitate to say a side "wins" :-) ), probably because commanding on pub servers is a lot of work.
TalesinOur own little well of hateJoin Date: 2002-11-08Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
edited November 2002
I'm not knocking the mod itself. When a team does not exploit these known overbalances, we tend to have a great game. Sadly, on pubs at least, when a Commander *doesn't* take advantage of the Siege Crawl or Welder Group, they usually end up getting ejected or blamed for the loss if it happens. If not, 'Yeah! We kick a**!! Take THAT, Aliens!' tends to be closer to the ready room chatter.
I'm sure that during those six months the playtesters fixed a lot of BIG balance problems. The thing is, when you play a game for six months you tend to form a few set patterns, even through patches and revisions. Also, playtesters may play like Clanners do, but if you look at the ratio of servers out there, the majority of 'em are pubs. Not to discount the work the PTs have done, pub-players don't play like PTs do. Pubs don't know the tricks that were picked up in those six months of playing. And when the 'easier' tricks get whored on the pubs for one side or the other, it doesn't give the counters as much chance of evolving. Or being talked about. While PTs talk to each other about the game a lot, in some cases pub players will learn a strategy and keep it to themselves. So random chance at discovering the counter combined with that says that the counters will take a lot longer for the pub players to discover than the PTs did. Of course, the counterpoint to that being that there are a metric rumpload more pub players than there are PTs, increasing the probability of it coming out faster.
Sensory-spam? I honestly don't believe it, for three words. 'The Enemy Approaches'. ALREADY if a Hive has three SCs at it, and there are more than one Marine arriving, you get inundated with 'The.. the Enemy.. the.. the... the enemy approaches!'. But it doesn't tell you WHERE. And Marines only show up on Hivesight if the SC has direct LOS on them. So if they're going down a parallel passageway, it STILL trips, you STILL have no idea where it is (remember, SCs are no longer Area-of-Effect Parasiters as they were at one point in the PTing phase), and you're still annoyed by stuttering SCs. This would be more useful if the SC lit up with something on Hivesight when tripped (say, turn the 'aura' bright blue?) so you'd at least know where the warning was coming from, even if it didn't parasite the troops themselves. If this happened, possibly along with a way to turn off that audio cue (make it like the 'Parasite Detected' indicator? Stay up for five seconds or so, then fade away so long as the Marines still weren't in proximity to the tripping Sensory?) THEN we'd see Sensory-spam. But making it a contact-only 'weapon' and having no way to locate the one that's going off makes it into unquestionably the _least_ useful Chamber type, and possibly the most annoying. Only contender for that is accidentally tripping a Movement Chamber, or getting up all three Hives just to find out that the Movements at each will only take you to *two* of the Hives, back and forth, but never the third.
And if the PTers have a 'trick' to beating the Siege Crawl that _doesn't_ involve teamwork larger than two or three (and you're lucky to get that, most of the time on pubs) I'd love to hear it. Keeping in mind that the STs either have had their range increased or are no longer LOS (one or the other was apparently how they were very close to the release, little PT time comparatively, leading to the map glitch on ns_bast, not sure which though). Same with the HA/Welder four-man monkeygroups. I've gotten a trio of Fades together to try and pop 'em, and we could do next to nothing if they kept welding each other (including crouching in a corner as a four-man team). Acid Rocket damage was welded away in seconds at best, if you tried to Slash you got popped *well* before you killed them, Blinking didn't do much other than distract them a little, and occasionally land you on top of one (where they'd just look up and *pop* goes the Fade). We didn't have Third Hive, and were barely holding Second against these jokers.
And anyway... if these were known to have in-game workarounds, the devs wouldn't really do anything. Or have to do anything, more precisely. HMGs still do the same damage. Cost a little more, but not much. GLs got changed integrally.. clip size (more than once IIRC), ROF and cost. Leads me to believe they didn't have the Marines load up half (or all of) their team with HA/GL in PT and just walk around in FF-Off explosions through the whole map, sending unescapable volleys of exploding death that Umbra won't stop toward any Alien brave enough to even TRY and stop them. Then load 'em up and do it again if one or more _somehow_ got taken down.
To fix ns_bast, they're either going to have to change the Siege (balancing it), redo the map, SCRAP the siege, or scrap the map and leave it out of the official release in the future (which would SUCK, as it's a great map other than the Siege exploits). It was a slipup. Everyone's human, everyone makes mistakes. We deal with it until it can be fixed. This is why a good number of us are on the forums. To bring it to attention, in case it was unexpected and deemed unacceptable.. and even suggest ways to fix it. The thread (well, one of them) about the Ready Room exploit for Aliens has a number of good suggestions to solve the problem, for example.
The patches seem closer to a pendulum. One side started off as overpowered (possibly because the PTs got *so* good at playing Aliens), then it swung the other way. v1.02 seemed to be pretty well-balanced except for minor bugs, the siege turrets, and the welders. Both Marines and Aliens had a chance. And sometimes the Aliens could manage to pull off an incredible comeback from zero-Hive.
v1.03 seems to have fixed a number of the bugs. Unfortunately, while attempting to have a solution to the Lerk-hiding-in-the-vent because STUPID Commanders didn't quite grasp the concept of 'sensor sweep button', the ability for Aliens to make that dramatic comeback was taken away. Lose third Hive, you don't even get a *chance* to make a mad dash across the level to get one of the others up, only zero-hive weapons available, against Marines at the top of their tech tree. And even sometimes <b>win</b>. Sadly, this seems to be glitched as well.. you'll die even if a Hive is in the building-phase, if you don't have one fully operational, spawn-from-able Hive. Even if it's seconds from completing, if that first one falls, *glitch*. Whereas Marines retain the ability to jetpack around in the vents if they feel like it, Aliens having no Sensor Sweep (though Scent of Fear and Spores _do_ work fairly well) and a Celerity 3 Skulk being unable to catch the JPer. With no motion tracking, so long as the JPer avoids Aliens (with his Motion Tracking still *enabled*) he has a chance to run across the map, build a previously-placed backup CC, and drop portals in before jumping out to build them and bring the Marines back. I've pulled off the Alien version twice, with me as the psycho Gorge. I've *seen* the Marine version pulled off <b>once</b>. I don't know anyone else who has, nor have I heard tell of it on the board here. THEY need the auto-kill if their portals and CC are down. They can't rebuild. Aliens can. And a JPer marine can simply *outrun* any Alien in a Vent... smooth ceiling means top speed. Hopefully more maps will include 'speedbumps' on the top of vents to prevent that from happening.
Yeah I have to say I'm surprised at how quickly patches are coming out of the wood-work... I remember Flayra saying he was looking forward to some sort of a break, but now I am even wondering if he is sleeping right (he's had to correct a few typos in his programming lately... a sign of lack of sleep?)
I find it hard to believe that some people here think that balance hasn't been worked on at all. Lets not forget how 1.01 effectively doubled the damage rate of acid rockets, and made fades a lot tougher.
We have also witnessed a few bugs which were causing a lot of inbalance. It is quite hard to fix inbalance when the current balance is being distorted by exploits and bugs. Explosives weren't working correctly, Onos and Gorges were getting stuck everywhere, marines weren't getting their armour upgrades, marines had a massive resource advantage, marines became all but unkillable when they crouched... These are all bugs that were deeply affecting gameplay. As each bug is removed, we get closer and closer to seeing what NS is truly like. As we get closer to that, and as we learn the trickier aspects to NS, we will all have very different opinions on how to play NS and where the inbalance really lies.
Personally, I think many of you are just playing on the wrong servers...
In the servers I play on, the aliens have always been far more skilled than the marines, and I haven't seen many marine victories lately. Yet you are all here complaining about them being too strong!
Static defenses simply do not work for long in this game. Be it a wall of lame, or seige crawl, they never last for very long. Players on our servers (our being a collective term for servers in my country, New Zealand) are more and more being forced to rely on people to do the work. Ofcourse, person to person combat is the alien strength, so they pwn.
PS - It's very common to see a single skulk take down 3 or 4 marines on it's own. Our marines suck. Period.
TalesinOur own little well of hateJoin Date: 2002-11-08Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
I can get three or four (five on a good day, sometimes) un-upgraded Marines so long as I have Celerity and Carapace as a Skulk. WITHOUT bouncing around like a superball on crack, as the Marines are more and more, recently. Without any upgrades, I can probably handle two at the same time. Three I get into a danger zone.. they have to be stupid Marines, or have terrible aim.
Or be looking the other way. Darwin, demonstration please.
TalesinOur own little well of hateJoin Date: 2002-11-08Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
Tanking? And Umbra doesn't work on welders. Healing Spray only heals 10dmg/spray, IIRC. About 10dmg/sec. Against 100dmg/sec. It does very, very little.
(assuming you're referring to Tanking) Alien Carapace does very little beyond give Fades an additional 35HP. Honestly, Aliens have to heal their HP before the Armor starts healing, anyway. The Armor will be gone before their HP will, in ALL cases, even with Carapace 1. So Carapace 3 does _nothing_... more absorption to 'armor' means nothing when you take the exact same number of hits to kill with Carapace 1 as with Carapace 3, with full armor on each and the same Armor value for both. About the ONLY Alien that Carapace 3 really helps above and beyond Carapace 1 is the Lerk. Because they have MORE AP than they do HP. So increased transferrence of that to the higher Armor value (which _could_ theoretically not run out before their HP is zero) does some good. But for everything else.. after the first Defense Chamber, it gives you no real bonus as far as I've figured.
ANY strategy game gets tiresome after a while unless there are new maps to spice it up. New maps = new strategies and more variety. Different gameplay types (aliens vs. aliens, marines vs. marines) and eye-candy (new models or skins approved by the devs) wouldn't hurt either.
Find me a game out there that never gets old - you won't. Every game has a point where it shows you nothing new unless the designers constantly release "goodie packages" containing small content updates. Thankfully the NS team is in the position to do this for free (whereas big game companies can usually only afford to release one or two mission packs), not to mention they can get tons of map-makers and such onboard to help out in an auxilliary sort of way, with their own contributions, small or large.
<!--QuoteBegin--AfterShock+Nov 29 2002, 10:06 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (AfterShock @ Nov 29 2002, 10:06 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->It seems to me as if you are complaining about commander being boring and repetetive. So why not try a different player? gorge(builder, defender, healer, rusher - all different ways to play) Skulk (rusher / hider / defender) or play a marine?
Usually when i join a team of aliens that have low morale cos all their bases are suddenly getting chewed up by seige cannons, i can rush past their bases as alien and still cause a lot of havoc.. usually by munching on the commander. I've played about 5 games where marines have 1 or 2 hives and aliens think they've lost.. suddenly After$hock(TEAM): HAHAHAHA COMM CENTER DEAD lololol
If marines have a hive and aliens have 2, marines will have siege cannons, BUT aliens will have fades- probably with regen/adren (or any 2 other upgrades) also skulks are able to leap which is hidesouly underrated.... i havent met a base where i cant get thru to the commander yet... unless they are turtling in which cause u just get fades/lerks on the job.. umbra + acid rocket = dead turtle.
Maybe with a great commander and a load of great marines you could own me + a noob team but i would still expect me to chomp on your comm center every few minutes <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Remember its all about fun- if its hideously unbalanced but everyone still has fun- then its a good game.
- After$hock<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> HAHAHAHAHAHAHA u took my in game name. hmmm...... you use that name in game too? I justh ope you spell it with the $
Iam AfTeRsHoCk - one and only <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> 4+ yrs running with the name <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
I have to agree to the post. Siege spamming are more and more used. Don't even suggest that the dev team may remove siege, due to the fact that alien can build-in the marine base. Tweaking sensory chambers to defend against siege is also not a good idead, as you might just remove the siege to get the same effect. The best (and maybe only...) solution to this problem is that the marine siege only may fire opon alien structures that marines see or "laserpick". Also, it would be a good idea that the siege cannons only have limited ammo. After all the ammo is used command need to buy more ammo that a marine could bring to the siege, or just a refill button.
Each alternative have its downsides and upsides. Players will always think the game is unballanced. In NS the commanders is the difference betwin win or loose.
I think that the siege cannons are needed for gameplay but are a bit overpowered. If you take them out aliens would advance building some def chambers every few meters as they do now if there are no sieges (Rush, pull back a bit heal, rush again). And since the marines have no healing ability without support from a teammate or commander they would be screwed. They should base the damage of the siege to the distance of the target. Maybee till 50% of range of the siege 100% of damage, at 60% of range 80% of damage,...,at 90% of range 20% of damage. So sieges would be still usefull but not that good to take out a hive across the map.(20% damage can easily be countered with some def chambers.) Plus they should make them unable to damage the players so you could get close to your towers and support them. (Often you cannot advance on the turrets because som def chambers are in the tunnel and as you try to get through it to reach them you get blown by siege damage) Another thing that is a bit unbalanced is the 2 hive situation. In most of the maps the marines can secure 1 hive fast if their commander/players isnt a/arn´t total moron/s. Now theoretically this should be the situation where games should be tough to win for both sides. In reality as soon as the marines get HMG and GL they win. Its because with 2 hives you have no effective counter to the GL(They have nothing that can shoot around corners). The marines can just equipp 1-2 of them with GL and send 1-2 HMG gunners along with them for support and waste entire hives even if the aliens have fades cause the grenade launcher cannot be countered at distance. Only way is to rush them dead on but thats where the hmg comes in. And with the damage you take from the grenade spam while rushing youre dead pretty fast.(Play on the Corona in space NS server and you will see this formation pretty often.) Yesterday we lost 5 games to the grenade armys in a row even if we had excellent teamwork on the alien side. They just secured a corridor near our hives(spamming grenades) and then sieged/grenaded us to death(4 marines owned our entire army, and no we dont all just sucked). I think a good solution to that problem would be to give the lerks umbra with 1 hive, a weakened version of spores at 2 and the spikes with 3 hiven(maybe with hmg power). So they could spore the corridor campers so they must move, giving the fades a opportunity to attack and it would justify the 33 bucks the lerk costs (now its to much for such low health and attack and umbra is useless against grenades). As it is now lerks are useless at one hive since they have no umbra(just skulk them they are for free) and too weak at 2 hives where marines have gl. they only rock if your team has 3 hives but then you simply go onos and waste em. Summary: Balance the game for the upgraded 2 hive vs. upgraded marines situation so we can have tough fights that last a bit (I love to fight for every inch of the map)
I find playing as aliens boring right now because they always win because in pubs it doesn't require teamwork. Its like CS, bunch of guys with minds of their own and a common goal.
Playing as marines the only reason my team doesn't win is bad comm, or stupid marines. It requires actual teamwork.
But as of right now, I'd say the only unbalanced thing is Onos. They are just rediculously powerfull. But they are just for end game. its like if you gave marines BFG2000 for 200rs each. no way they'd have enough rs unless the game was in the bag.
<!--QuoteBegin--^Requiem^+Nov 29 2002, 12:38 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (^Requiem^ @ Nov 29 2002, 12:38 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->All you <span style='color:green'>***Spored.*** </span> people who just put your hands on your ears and scream "NO NO NO NO NO, NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO, NOOOOOOOOOOO", whenever someone mentions game imbalance issues, need to stop posting on these boards.
The reason these boards exist is for ideas, critcism, and comments to be voiced. You're in the wrong place for mindless flaming.
That aside, I do see where this poster is coming from. A marine commander who knows solid tactics can beat ANY skill level alien team if his marines follow simple orders and know how to shoot a gun at average levels. Alien skill doesn't factor in, end game balance doesn't factor in.
The game is unbalanced, seige IS unbalanced. I'm not one to remove something cool like that which is already in the game, so why not make a counter to seige cannons? And I'm talking about something solid, not nebulous like "USE FADES YOU MORON" -- The biggest problem with seiges is their use before the aliens are able to get fades.
Let the gorg build a new type of tower, which takes the damage done to any unit within its radius and distributes it evenly to everything in its radius. A shield tower, if you will.
<span style='color:green'>Read the last words of your second paragraph and then ask yourself whether that choice of words was in order.</span><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> if the marines use siege THAT soon, then they are spending all their rs and they aren't getting anything else. simply attack the base or take all the rs nodes. and let them siege. the job of aliens is to slow the marines down long enough to get 2 hives. by placing siege real early, they are slowing themselves down.
You know what I think. If this game had HUGE unbalance issues than the dev team will correct it quickly. There working really hard and I feel sorry for them just because a few people have some OPINIONS.
I dunno if this has been mentioned on this thread (i've mentioned it in another) but the only thing i can see thats not fair is the respawn times/ number of respawn points.
Aliens have a max of 3 spawn points for 160 resource points (the 2 hives) Marines have as many as they want/need for 15 per pop. They can also recall their whole team using Distress Deacon for 15 (IIRC)
This doesnt really make a difference in small games (4vs4 etc) but in a 9vs9 you REALLY see the difference this causes since if a group of 3 marines get taken out mid game then their probably gonna be back in 1 'respawn cycle'. If the aliens lose 3 mid game (say they have 2 hives) then it'll take 2 respawn cycles.
Also when the aliens lose a respawn point they also lose all the good stuff thats associated with having that extra hive.
I suppose you could say Redemption does something to counter this but how many people actually use it all the time (when their not an Onos) and it doesnt always work
Possible Solution: Make movement towers slightly decrease the respawn time of the alien team, up to a max of 3 towers effecting the respawn time.
Does a movement tower make turrets shoot faster? someone ingame said it did but ive never noticed it and havent found it in the manuals.
TalesinOur own little well of hateJoin Date: 2002-11-08Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
Again. The game is supposed to be balanced at two-hive. At one-hive, marines stomp Aliens into the ground and (with the insta-kill) win very shortly. With Three-Hive, Aliens are supposed to do the same thing to Marines. At two-hive, it's supposed to be a desperate battle for either side to take another Hive, or optionally for the Aliens to take out the Marine Base while the HMG/HAs are out attacking one of the two hives they DO hold.
Problem. You get RP faster on a 24-player server than you do on a twelve. Almost twice as fast. This allows Marines to set up Sieges early in the game with NO problem due to their communal resource pool, while Aliens are still struggling to get ONE Gorge up to 80RP so they can fight back effectively, or at least survive the Siege Cannon Spam. I've seen seven up in the first twenty minutes of a game, HAMMERING a Hive. HMG/HA wandering around. Aliens still hadn't gotten a second-Hive up. It's WAY too easy for Marines to just turtle up, and work their way back out with Sieges.
Hint: If you don't want to be 'built in' like the Marines do to the Aliens in the endgame, DON'T TURTLE. Duh. I mean, is this a novel concept? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Darwin?
i haven't really found too many balance issues in the game. Its all about the players on the team. Sometimes you have a bunch of kick **obscenity** marines who the aliens can never touch, and other time thiers skulks who seem invincible, so i figure its all about who your playing with that makes you think theirs balance issues
ZunniThe best thing to happen to I&S in a long whileJoin Date: 2002-11-26Member: 10016Members
<!--QuoteBegin--Talesin+Nov 29 2002, 06:34 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Talesin @ Nov 29 2002, 06:34 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Add a third Marine now.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> OK here's my 2 cent post...
If you have 2 or 3 marines for each one ONOS, and assuming the teams are even, then you have 2 free and clear aliens roaming around causing havok.. That's why I have seen aliens overrun the human base with fades while an Onos is keeping several marines busy (I don't know... there's something about seeing an elephant that everyone HAS to shoot at it )
I've rarely seen this happen, and the few times I have, before the marines could cause ANY damage, they had lost resource nodes,comm chairs etc......
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->In NS the commanders is the difference betwin win or loose.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, the other main differnce is how the gorges play. I play on a server that gets the second hive up fast, way before the marines can get a steady supply of heavy weapons/armour. So that leaves rushing the starter hive or 2 empty ones as the only way you can really win. Whenever I'm away from the main server I play on the gorges are never really as good, and I often see 3-5 gorges at the same time. If more players could understand how the alien RP system works we'd see fades up much faster on the average server. The marines can try to siege crawl but they'll just be wiped out by fades unless they get some upgrades.
So the only big difference I've been seeing between servers that have mostly alien wins and servers that are dominated by marines is how well the gorges play, and if the gorges consistently put the hive up in a few mins the aliens win about 90% of the time (not counting marine rushes). However I do think the siege range should be dropped a bit, just enough to not be able to siege the engine hive from bast's ms.
<!--QuoteBegin--Twex+Nov 29 2002, 08:23 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Twex @ Nov 29 2002, 08:23 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Either way, a round is decided after 10 minutes. There is no endgame.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I agree, the game is already decided after the early game. But there IS an endgame. There is just no <b>midgame</b>. Midgame means the period of time when it goes back and forth, back and forth, gaining back spots, losing spots. Thats usually the FUN part. Early game is just "Come on guys, we need to gain as many spots as possible to have a chance in midgame". But too fast aliens have fades most of the time and just push the marines back and back. Even with HA and HMG they have problems ketting out of the misery against the faster and more agile fades.
<b>Nemesis:</b> I think that calling strategies 'institutionalized' was a very good choice of words. Even now you get people saying: "No! Never do X." or "We always have to X first..."
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Possible Solution: Make movement towers slightly decrease the respawn time of the alien team, up to a max of 3 towers effecting the respawn time.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That would be VERY cool. I like the idea of Movement Chambers upgrading your respawn time. On large servers with one hive I can sometimes end up waiting what seems like a whole minute before I return.
I wouldn't be against having the function of the chambers tweaked so that it took you to a RANDOM non-current hive (so that you could get to the middle one occasionally. With three hives, you have two choices if you leave from a hive, so it isn't that bad.)
As for the new-maps idea, indeed! New maps would be great, and the tools are already out there. So get crackin, other people. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
NS gets old fast? As opposed to CS with it's .05 millisecond round repeated 100000000 times? NS is still fun for me! And this is coming from a person who gets bored with things at an incredible rate.
Isn't it so, that the only way to see, if the rules are balanced, is to put the two best clans (best skills, tactics and strategies) in the world against each other? If the team on Marines/Kharaa constantly wins, the rules are unbalanced in light of the the best current game-play know-how, simple as that. If this does not happen, if both team roles can win at least occasionally, then there is a reasonable balance.
"Two of the best clans" could be selected with a tournament which has all credible clans participating.
CS is such a joke. Sure it was innovative when it came out oh 2-3 years ago. But it's just 2 teams shooting at each other trying to see who lives longer. What crap. TFC has more going on in it then CS.
What a dingus. Quit comparing CS to NS because CS has no chance. There is a LOT more thought going on in NS.
So many abbreviations, so little time.
Anyone who doesn't like NS, GO AWAY. I'd rather not play with you anyway. Please go back to your precious Counter-Strike.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Isn't it so, that the only way to see, if the rules are balanced, is to put the two best clans (best skills, tactics and strategies) in the world against each other?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nope. While this might guarantee good balancing on high standards, it could still leave occasional pubplayers unbalanced, because they aren't skilled / good / adaptive enough.
Talesin was getting at this in his answer to me, and I can only agree with him, although I can't see how PTs have to equal clanplayers (I consider myself a medicore player with a strong 'loner' attitude towards organized gaming societies). During the PT, I had just this discussion with Grendel, clanleader of clan RaDoX and nailbiter tester, and at the end, we more or less agreed that, while a top level balance <i>has</i> to be there, it still has to stay balanced and fun for less skilled players.
I've noticed how important our comments are on this forum. It seems you guys feel you have built the perfect game out of the box. I guess us insignificant gamers are a bunch of kooks anyhow that wouldn't know a good game if it bit us in the ash.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yep, luckily, I'm not an insignificant gamer, and it is the perfect game out of the box. Thank God.
I wasnt comparing CS to NS, just saying how boring its got latly but i dont think that was directed at me anyway.
Anyway i think we should go into a standard HL server and get 12 players there who've never heard of a mod to download NS and play in a server with one of those spectator proxy server so we can all laugh at the marines trying to pick up skulks coz they think that thier snarks.
and to make Sensory Chambers(and Observatories) more useful perhaps make it so ppl cant see the death/kill messages until they get 3(or for the Maines...one) up?
Nemesis what word did I use there? I honestly can't remember, but I don't remember it being derogatory against anyone. I try to avoid mindless flaming as much as possible. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
It would be interesting if we all played chess instead. The forum would be about "the queen is just too powerful - she should only be able to move 3 squares" or "I need three rooks because you got to go first."
The game is as the game is. Life isn't always fair - neither is NS. How can you wax poetic about the unfairness of seige cannons while ignoring that aliens can be cloaked, or superfast, or blink, or regenerate . . .
One of the great strengths of NS is that the teams are so different. If you want a perfectly balanced game, then the two teams must be pretty much identical. NS has very different teams, and each team must be played differently. If one particular group of players has not developed a strategy to deal with one particular counter-strategy (i.e. seige cannons) then get out there and play with other folks who have. You will find there are folks out there winning regularly as aliens (I know, I often play as marine, and I certainly don't always win) <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo--> Of course, if I did, I would probably get bored. As of now, after a few hundred games, I'm not bored yet.
Keep smilin', keep playin' <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
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The maps wasn't designed with long-range siege turrets in mind. Cutting the range with about 20-30% will make bast and nancy playable again. Yea, mess hall in nancy is insane as well - you can cover about half the resources in the game with siege turrets controlled by TF's in mess hall.
Given all that though, marines still manage to lose the game more often than the aliens (given the quality of play, I hesitate to say a side "wins" :-) ), probably because commanding on pub servers is a lot of work.
I'm sure that during those six months the playtesters fixed a lot of BIG balance problems. The thing is, when you play a game for six months you tend to form a few set patterns, even through patches and revisions. Also, playtesters may play like Clanners do, but if you look at the ratio of servers out there, the majority of 'em are pubs. Not to discount the work the PTs have done, pub-players don't play like PTs do. Pubs don't know the tricks that were picked up in those six months of playing. And when the 'easier' tricks get whored on the pubs for one side or the other, it doesn't give the counters as much chance of evolving. Or being talked about. While PTs talk to each other about the game a lot, in some cases pub players will learn a strategy and keep it to themselves. So random chance at discovering the counter combined with that says that the counters will take a lot longer for the pub players to discover than the PTs did. Of course, the counterpoint to that being that there are a metric rumpload more pub players than there are PTs, increasing the probability of it coming out faster.
Sensory-spam? I honestly don't believe it, for three words. 'The Enemy Approaches'. ALREADY if a Hive has three SCs at it, and there are more than one Marine arriving, you get inundated with 'The.. the Enemy.. the.. the... the enemy approaches!'. But it doesn't tell you WHERE. And Marines only show up on Hivesight if the SC has direct LOS on them. So if they're going down a parallel passageway, it STILL trips, you STILL have no idea where it is (remember, SCs are no longer Area-of-Effect Parasiters as they were at one point in the PTing phase), and you're still annoyed by stuttering SCs. This would be more useful if the SC lit up with something on Hivesight when tripped (say, turn the 'aura' bright blue?) so you'd at least know where the warning was coming from, even if it didn't parasite the troops themselves. If this happened, possibly along with a way to turn off that audio cue (make it like the 'Parasite Detected' indicator? Stay up for five seconds or so, then fade away so long as the Marines still weren't in proximity to the tripping Sensory?) THEN we'd see Sensory-spam. But making it a contact-only 'weapon' and having no way to locate the one that's going off makes it into unquestionably the _least_ useful Chamber type, and possibly the most annoying. Only contender for that is accidentally tripping a Movement Chamber, or getting up all three Hives just to find out that the Movements at each will only take you to *two* of the Hives, back and forth, but never the third.
And if the PTers have a 'trick' to beating the Siege Crawl that _doesn't_ involve teamwork larger than two or three (and you're lucky to get that, most of the time on pubs) I'd love to hear it. Keeping in mind that the STs either have had their range increased or are no longer LOS (one or the other was apparently how they were very close to the release, little PT time comparatively, leading to the map glitch on ns_bast, not sure which though). Same with the HA/Welder four-man monkeygroups. I've gotten a trio of Fades together to try and pop 'em, and we could do next to nothing if they kept welding each other (including crouching in a corner as a four-man team). Acid Rocket damage was welded away in seconds at best, if you tried to Slash you got popped *well* before you killed them, Blinking didn't do much other than distract them a little, and occasionally land you on top of one (where they'd just look up and *pop* goes the Fade). We didn't have Third Hive, and were barely holding Second against these jokers.
And anyway... if these were known to have in-game workarounds, the devs wouldn't really do anything. Or have to do anything, more precisely. HMGs still do the same damage. Cost a little more, but not much. GLs got changed integrally.. clip size (more than once IIRC), ROF and cost. Leads me to believe they didn't have the Marines load up half (or all of) their team with HA/GL in PT and just walk around in FF-Off explosions through the whole map, sending unescapable volleys of exploding death that Umbra won't stop toward any Alien brave enough to even TRY and stop them. Then load 'em up and do it again if one or more _somehow_ got taken down.
To fix ns_bast, they're either going to have to change the Siege (balancing it), redo the map, SCRAP the siege, or scrap the map and leave it out of the official release in the future (which would SUCK, as it's a great map other than the Siege exploits). It was a slipup. Everyone's human, everyone makes mistakes. We deal with it until it can be fixed. This is why a good number of us are on the forums. To bring it to attention, in case it was unexpected and deemed unacceptable.. and even suggest ways to fix it. The thread (well, one of them) about the Ready Room exploit for Aliens has a number of good suggestions to solve the problem, for example.
The patches seem closer to a pendulum. One side started off as overpowered (possibly because the PTs got *so* good at playing Aliens), then it swung the other way. v1.02 seemed to be pretty well-balanced except for minor bugs, the siege turrets, and the welders. Both Marines and Aliens had a chance. And sometimes the Aliens could manage to pull off an incredible comeback from zero-Hive.
v1.03 seems to have fixed a number of the bugs. Unfortunately, while attempting to have a solution to the Lerk-hiding-in-the-vent because STUPID Commanders didn't quite grasp the concept of 'sensor sweep button', the ability for Aliens to make that dramatic comeback was taken away. Lose third Hive, you don't even get a *chance* to make a mad dash across the level to get one of the others up, only zero-hive weapons available, against Marines at the top of their tech tree. And even sometimes <b>win</b>. Sadly, this seems to be glitched as well.. you'll die even if a Hive is in the building-phase, if you don't have one fully operational, spawn-from-able Hive. Even if it's seconds from completing, if that first one falls, *glitch*. Whereas Marines retain the ability to jetpack around in the vents if they feel like it, Aliens having no Sensor Sweep (though Scent of Fear and Spores _do_ work fairly well) and a Celerity 3 Skulk being unable to catch the JPer. With no motion tracking, so long as the JPer avoids Aliens (with his Motion Tracking still *enabled*) he has a chance to run across the map, build a previously-placed backup CC, and drop portals in before jumping out to build them and bring the Marines back. I've pulled off the Alien version twice, with me as the psycho Gorge. I've *seen* the Marine version pulled off <b>once</b>. I don't know anyone else who has, nor have I heard tell of it on the board here. THEY need the auto-kill if their portals and CC are down. They can't rebuild. Aliens can. And a JPer marine can simply *outrun* any Alien in a Vent... smooth ceiling means top speed. Hopefully more maps will include 'speedbumps' on the top of vents to prevent that from happening.
<!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <<<b>CHOMPEH!!</b>>> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo-->
Yeah I have to say I'm surprised at how quickly patches are coming out of the wood-work... I remember Flayra saying he was looking forward to some sort of a break, but now I am even wondering if he is sleeping right (he's had to correct a few typos in his programming lately... a sign of lack of sleep?)
I find it hard to believe that some people here think that balance hasn't been worked on at all. Lets not forget how 1.01 effectively doubled the damage rate of acid rockets, and made fades a lot tougher.
We have also witnessed a few bugs which were causing a lot of inbalance. It is quite hard to fix inbalance when the current balance is being distorted by exploits and bugs. Explosives weren't working correctly, Onos and Gorges were getting stuck everywhere, marines weren't getting their armour upgrades, marines had a massive resource advantage, marines became all but unkillable when they crouched... These are all bugs that were deeply affecting gameplay. As each bug is removed, we get closer and closer to seeing what NS is truly like. As we get closer to that, and as we learn the trickier aspects to NS, we will all have very different opinions on how to play NS and where the inbalance really lies.
Personally, I think many of you are just playing on the wrong servers...
In the servers I play on, the aliens have always been far more skilled than the marines, and I haven't seen many marine victories lately. Yet you are all here complaining about them being too strong!
Static defenses simply do not work for long in this game. Be it a wall of lame, or seige crawl, they never last for very long. Players on our servers (our being a collective term for servers in my country, New Zealand) are more and more being forced to rely on people to do the work. Ofcourse, person to person combat is the alien strength, so they pwn.
PS - It's very common to see a single skulk take down 3 or 4 marines on it's own. Our marines suck. Period.
Or be looking the other way. Darwin, demonstration please.
<!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <<<b>CHOMPEH!!</b>>> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo-->
(PS: For anyone wondering who has seen my posts before, Darwin's my adopted Skulk here on the boards. Innt he cuuuuuute?)
(assuming you're referring to Tanking) Alien Carapace does very little beyond give Fades an additional 35HP. Honestly, Aliens have to heal their HP before the Armor starts healing, anyway. The Armor will be gone before their HP will, in ALL cases, even with Carapace 1. So Carapace 3 does _nothing_... more absorption to 'armor' means nothing when you take the exact same number of hits to kill with Carapace 1 as with Carapace 3, with full armor on each and the same Armor value for both. About the ONLY Alien that Carapace 3 really helps above and beyond Carapace 1 is the Lerk. Because they have MORE AP than they do HP. So increased transferrence of that to the higher Armor value (which _could_ theoretically not run out before their HP is zero) does some good. But for everything else.. after the first Defense Chamber, it gives you no real bonus as far as I've figured.
<!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <<<b>CHOMPEH!!</b>>> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo-->
ANY strategy game gets tiresome after a while unless there are new maps to spice it up. New maps = new strategies and more variety. Different gameplay types (aliens vs. aliens, marines vs. marines) and eye-candy (new models or skins approved by the devs) wouldn't hurt either.
Find me a game out there that never gets old - you won't. Every game has a point where it shows you nothing new unless the designers constantly release "goodie packages" containing small content updates. Thankfully the NS team is in the position to do this for free (whereas big game companies can usually only afford to release one or two mission packs), not to mention they can get tons of map-makers and such onboard to help out in an auxilliary sort of way, with their own contributions, small or large.
Usually when i join a team of aliens that have low morale cos all their bases are suddenly getting chewed up by seige cannons, i can rush past their bases as alien and still cause a lot of havoc.. usually by munching on the commander. I've played about 5 games where marines have 1 or 2 hives and aliens think they've lost.. suddenly After$hock(TEAM): HAHAHAHA COMM CENTER DEAD lololol
If marines have a hive and aliens have 2, marines will have siege cannons, BUT aliens will have fades- probably with regen/adren (or any 2 other upgrades) also skulks are able to leap which is hidesouly underrated.... i havent met a base where i cant get thru to the commander yet... unless they are turtling in which cause u just get fades/lerks on the job.. umbra + acid rocket = dead turtle.
Maybe with a great commander and a load of great marines you could own me + a noob team but i would still expect me to chomp on your comm center every few minutes <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Remember its all about fun- if its hideously unbalanced but everyone still has fun- then its a good game.
- After$hock<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA u took my in game name. hmmm...... you use that name in game too? I justh ope you spell it with the $
Iam AfTeRsHoCk - one and only <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> 4+ yrs running with the name <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Don't even suggest that the dev team may remove siege, due to the fact that alien can build-in the marine base. Tweaking sensory chambers to defend against siege is also not a good idead, as you might just remove the siege to get the same effect.
The best (and maybe only...) solution to this problem is that the marine siege only may fire opon alien structures that marines see or "laserpick". Also, it would be a good idea that the siege cannons only have limited ammo. After all the ammo is used command need to buy more ammo that a marine could bring to the siege, or just a refill button.
Each alternative have its downsides and upsides. Players will always think the game is unballanced. In NS the commanders is the difference betwin win or loose.
<!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo-->
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Another thing that is a bit unbalanced is the 2 hive situation. In most of the maps the marines can secure 1 hive fast if their commander/players isnt a/arn´t total moron/s. Now theoretically this should be the situation where games should be tough to win for both sides. In reality as soon as the marines get HMG and GL they win. Its because with 2 hives you have no effective counter to the GL(They have nothing that can shoot around corners). The marines can just equipp 1-2 of them with GL and send 1-2 HMG gunners along with them for support and waste entire hives even if the aliens have fades cause the grenade launcher cannot be countered at distance. Only way is to rush them dead on but thats where the hmg comes in. And with the damage you take from the grenade spam while rushing youre dead pretty fast.(Play on the Corona in space NS server and you will see this formation pretty often.) Yesterday we lost 5 games to the grenade armys in a row even if we had excellent teamwork on the alien side. They just secured a corridor near our hives(spamming grenades) and then sieged/grenaded us to death(4 marines owned our entire army, and no we dont all just sucked). I think a good solution to that problem would be to give the lerks umbra with 1 hive, a weakened version of spores at 2 and the spikes with 3 hiven(maybe with hmg power). So they could spore the corridor campers so they must move, giving the fades a opportunity to attack and it would justify the 33 bucks the lerk costs (now its to much for such low health and attack and umbra is useless against grenades). As it is now lerks are useless at one hive since they have no umbra(just skulk them they are for free) and too weak at 2 hives where marines have gl. they only rock if your team has 3 hives but then you simply go onos and waste em.
Summary: Balance the game for the upgraded 2 hive vs. upgraded marines situation so we can have tough fights that last a bit (I love to fight for every inch of the map)
I find playing as aliens boring right now because they always win because in pubs it doesn't require teamwork. Its like CS, bunch of guys with minds of their own and a common goal.
Playing as marines the only reason my team doesn't win is bad comm, or stupid marines. It requires actual teamwork.
But as of right now, I'd say the only unbalanced thing is Onos. They are just rediculously powerfull. But they are just for end game. its like if you gave marines BFG2000 for 200rs each. no way they'd have enough rs unless the game was in the bag.
The reason these boards exist is for ideas, critcism, and comments to be voiced. You're in the wrong place for mindless flaming.
That aside, I do see where this poster is coming from. A marine commander who knows solid tactics can beat ANY skill level alien team if his marines follow simple orders and know how to shoot a gun at average levels. Alien skill doesn't factor in, end game balance doesn't factor in.
The game is unbalanced, seige IS unbalanced. I'm not one to remove something cool like that which is already in the game, so why not make a counter to seige cannons? And I'm talking about something solid, not nebulous like "USE FADES YOU MORON" -- The biggest problem with seiges is their use before the aliens are able to get fades.
Let the gorg build a new type of tower, which takes the damage done to any unit within its radius and distributes it evenly to everything in its radius. A shield tower, if you will.
<span style='color:green'>Read the last words of your second paragraph and then ask yourself whether that choice of words was in order.</span><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
if the marines use siege THAT soon, then they are spending all their rs and they aren't getting anything else. simply attack the base or take all the rs nodes. and let them siege. the job of aliens is to slow the marines down long enough to get 2 hives. by placing siege real early, they are slowing themselves down.
Aliens have a max of 3 spawn points for 160 resource points (the 2 hives)
Marines have as many as they want/need for 15 per pop. They can also recall their whole team using Distress Deacon for 15 (IIRC)
This doesnt really make a difference in small games (4vs4 etc) but in a 9vs9 you REALLY see the difference this causes since if a group of 3 marines get taken out mid game then their probably gonna be back in 1 'respawn cycle'. If the aliens lose 3 mid game (say they have 2 hives) then it'll take 2 respawn cycles.
Also when the aliens lose a respawn point they also lose all the good stuff thats associated with having that extra hive.
I suppose you could say Redemption does something to counter this but how many people actually use it all the time (when their not an Onos) and it doesnt always work
Possible Solution:
Make movement towers slightly decrease the respawn time of the alien team, up to a max of 3 towers effecting the respawn time.
Does a movement tower make turrets shoot faster? someone ingame said it did but ive never noticed it and havent found it in the manuals.
Problem. You get RP faster on a 24-player server than you do on a twelve. Almost twice as fast. This allows Marines to set up Sieges early in the game with NO problem due to their communal resource pool, while Aliens are still struggling to get ONE Gorge up to 80RP so they can fight back effectively, or at least survive the Siege Cannon Spam. I've seen seven up in the first twenty minutes of a game, HAMMERING a Hive. HMG/HA wandering around. Aliens still hadn't gotten a second-Hive up. It's WAY too easy for Marines to just turtle up, and work their way back out with Sieges.
Hint: If you don't want to be 'built in' like the Marines do to the Aliens in the endgame, DON'T TURTLE. Duh. I mean, is this a novel concept? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Darwin?
<!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <<<b>CHOMPEH!!</b>>> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo-->
OK here's my 2 cent post...
If you have 2 or 3 marines for each one ONOS, and assuming the teams are even, then you have 2 free and clear aliens roaming around causing havok.. That's why I have seen aliens overrun the human base with fades while an Onos is keeping several marines busy (I don't know... there's something about seeing an elephant that everyone HAS to shoot at it )
I've rarely seen this happen, and the few times I have, before the marines could cause ANY damage, they had lost resource nodes,comm chairs etc......
No, the other main differnce is how the gorges play. I play on a server that gets the second hive up fast, way before the marines can get a steady supply of heavy weapons/armour. So that leaves rushing the starter hive or 2 empty ones as the only way you can really win. Whenever I'm away from the main server I play on the gorges are never really as good, and I often see 3-5 gorges at the same time. If more players could understand how the alien RP system works we'd see fades up much faster on the average server. The marines can try to siege crawl but they'll just be wiped out by fades unless they get some upgrades.
So the only big difference I've been seeing between servers that have mostly alien wins and servers that are dominated by marines is how well the gorges play, and if the gorges consistently put the hive up in a few mins the aliens win about 90% of the time (not counting marine rushes). However I do think the siege range should be dropped a bit, just enough to not be able to siege the engine hive from bast's ms.
I agree, the game is already decided after the early game. But there IS an endgame. There is just no <b>midgame</b>. Midgame means the period of time when it goes back and forth, back and forth, gaining back spots, losing spots. Thats usually the FUN part. Early game is just "Come on guys, we need to gain as many spots as possible to have a chance in midgame". But too fast aliens have fades most of the time and just push the marines back and back. Even with HA and HMG they have problems ketting out of the misery against the faster and more agile fades.
I think that calling strategies 'institutionalized' was a very good choice of words. Even now you get people saying: "No! Never do X." or "We always have to X first..."
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Possible Solution:
Make movement towers slightly decrease the respawn time of the alien team, up to a max of 3 towers effecting the respawn time.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That would be VERY cool. I like the idea of Movement Chambers upgrading your respawn time. On large servers with one hive I can sometimes end up waiting what seems like a whole minute before I return.
I wouldn't be against having the function of the chambers tweaked so that it took you to a RANDOM non-current hive (so that you could get to the middle one occasionally. With three hives, you have two choices if you leave from a hive, so it isn't that bad.)
As for the new-maps idea, indeed! New maps would be great, and the tools are already out there. So get crackin, other people. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
NS gets old fast? As opposed to CS with it's .05 millisecond round repeated 100000000 times?
NS is still fun for me! And this is coming from a person who gets bored with things at an incredible rate.
/me goes off to kill some chewy marines...
Although saying that I've never once gotten bored of cs_assault_upc and its the only level i've played in CS for a very long time
"Two of the best clans" could be selected with a tournament which has all credible clans participating.
What a dingus. Quit comparing CS to NS because CS has no chance. There is a LOT more thought going on in NS.
So many abbreviations, so little time.
Anyone who doesn't like NS, GO AWAY. I'd rather not play with you anyway. Please go back to your precious Counter-Strike.
Nope. While this might guarantee good balancing on high standards, it could still leave occasional pubplayers unbalanced, because they aren't skilled / good / adaptive enough.
Talesin was getting at this in his answer to me, and I can only agree with him, although I can't see how PTs have to equal clanplayers (I consider myself a medicore player with a strong 'loner' attitude towards organized gaming societies).
During the PT, I had just this discussion with Grendel, clanleader of clan RaDoX and nailbiter tester, and at the end, we more or less agreed that, while a top level balance <i>has</i> to be there, it still has to stay balanced and fun for less skilled players.
I've noticed how important our comments are on this forum. It seems you guys feel you have built the perfect game out of the box. I guess us insignificant gamers are a bunch of kooks anyhow that wouldn't know a good game if it bit us in the ash.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yep, luckily, I'm not an insignificant gamer, and it is the perfect game out of the box. Thank God.
Anyway i think we should go into a standard HL server and get 12 players there who've never heard of a mod to download NS and play in a server with one of those spectator proxy server so we can all laugh at the marines trying to pick up skulks coz they think that thier snarks.