Experiences In Balance
Zenn
Join Date: 2003-02-01 Member: 12970Members
Join Date: 2003-02-01 Member: 12970Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Yup, another post about unbalanced-ness</div> OKAY! Well, I'm in a good game of NS, teams are about 11 to 11, some good skilled players on each side, 3 of my friends all on my team (aliens). Things start off good, few rushes in both directions, trying to halt marine advance. (I forget the map name, but I'm sure you'll figure it out, cause i know all the location names <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> ) The marines take messhall early, and turret farm the crap out of it, not good, but its okay. We secure 2nd hive, have lvl 3 carapace, and hive is building. While that was going on, marines got "no-name". They were getting no-name and putting pressure on port engine all at the same time (good work on their part). Okay, so we notice they got no-name, finally, lol. We mass up, and head there, still without fades <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo--> . Our attempt to get it fails horribly, as EVERY marine phased over and killed us all, bummer. Some time passes, random fights here and there, 2nd hive goes up, at almost the exact same time, marines get out HMGs (no HA yet). So more even battles take wage, and no ground is gained on either side, total stalemate. Eventally, they get HA...then come the grenades (you knew it was coming to that didn't ya?). We attack, and attack...first we go for messhall, no dice, millions of turrets all over, grenades flying all over, HMG fire everywhere, and comm spamming health. We give up there, and make an attempt on no-name, results at the same, we just can't get anything done at all. Keep in mind, during these attacks, EVERYONE on aliens went, we all rushed as a team, and failed again, and again to grenade/turret/hmg/ha/health spam. Eventually, marines took mother interface, and sieged subspace, and everyone quit.
Now, if marines group up, and work as a team, they can take nearly anything. If Aliens group up (at 2 hives) and work as team, lerks umbraing, gorges spamming health, fades all over...they can't take even one decently defended marine outpost. 2 hive aliens simply can not fight against marines at the top of their tech tree, grenade spam, health spam, HA+welders just can't be beat down.
And what if we manage to take out the TF, or the phasegate, or like, 4 turrets before most of us die...they are back up in seconds! We tried everytrick we could think of, and everytime we got our **** handed to us. We aren't bad players by anymeans either.
Quick list of changes to make things more even, even though no one will like them, or care, or agree.
#1: Delay on health/ammo drops to 2 seconds per drop (edit-changed), so the comm can't just get a hotkey and spamm health everywhere to win everyfight.
#2: Grenades should damage friendly buildings. Makes sense to me, you wanna lob grenades all over, you should be hurting your own structures, maybe people will be a little more cautious with them then. <i>Also change max grenades able to carry to 18. (omit)</i>
#3: Honestly, I know its a huge change, but seiges need a re-vamp. If you're gonna let them shoot through walls, cut the damage they do by about 75%. Either this, or give the hive an equal ability to seige marine structures, so you can't seige a hive, cause it'll be seiging you right back (would need to be very damaging). If marines want a dang hive, they should have to run up to it with guns blazing and blow it up. No more killing from the next room junk.
(EDIT) #4: Limit on turrets equal to limit on OC's of the aliens.
This would do a lot to making the aliens have a CHANCE in the kinda game I described above. We played a very good game, but it came down to grenade spam and health spam that made it just impossible for us to have a chance. To give you some prespective...during the no-name battle, which lasted almost 35 minutes by itself...we killed about 3 marines with lerks, fades, and gorges all doing thier jobs (even a couple skulks), they killed all of us about 4 times (44), something ain't right there folks.
Personally, I can't wait for 1.1.
Now, if marines group up, and work as a team, they can take nearly anything. If Aliens group up (at 2 hives) and work as team, lerks umbraing, gorges spamming health, fades all over...they can't take even one decently defended marine outpost. 2 hive aliens simply can not fight against marines at the top of their tech tree, grenade spam, health spam, HA+welders just can't be beat down.
And what if we manage to take out the TF, or the phasegate, or like, 4 turrets before most of us die...they are back up in seconds! We tried everytrick we could think of, and everytime we got our **** handed to us. We aren't bad players by anymeans either.
Quick list of changes to make things more even, even though no one will like them, or care, or agree.
#1: Delay on health/ammo drops to 2 seconds per drop (edit-changed), so the comm can't just get a hotkey and spamm health everywhere to win everyfight.
#2: Grenades should damage friendly buildings. Makes sense to me, you wanna lob grenades all over, you should be hurting your own structures, maybe people will be a little more cautious with them then. <i>Also change max grenades able to carry to 18. (omit)</i>
#3: Honestly, I know its a huge change, but seiges need a re-vamp. If you're gonna let them shoot through walls, cut the damage they do by about 75%. Either this, or give the hive an equal ability to seige marine structures, so you can't seige a hive, cause it'll be seiging you right back (would need to be very damaging). If marines want a dang hive, they should have to run up to it with guns blazing and blow it up. No more killing from the next room junk.
(EDIT) #4: Limit on turrets equal to limit on OC's of the aliens.
This would do a lot to making the aliens have a CHANCE in the kinda game I described above. We played a very good game, but it came down to grenade spam and health spam that made it just impossible for us to have a chance. To give you some prespective...during the no-name battle, which lasted almost 35 minutes by itself...we killed about 3 marines with lerks, fades, and gorges all doing thier jobs (even a couple skulks), they killed all of us about 4 times (44), something ain't right there folks.
Personally, I can't wait for 1.1.
Comments
even if you lost, you worked as a team and was a fun battle right?
(i do agree that health should have a delay on them)
What it came down to, was marines holding us back long enough to tech up and just walk right over us, we never gained even 1 room (minus the room outside no-name, which lasted all of about 10 seconds, damn seiges). Personally, it left a bad taste in me, and all my friends mouths.
Zenn, I will accept that you have a valid point, you have probably been playing longer than I have. But I must admit, the entire Marine game depends the quality of the commander. The rest of the team needs to be skilled, but the commander's decisions and speed will make or break them. I figure it was designed that way on purpose. What it really sounds like to me is that you just came up agaisnt a really good commander / team combo.
HOWEVER, in most games I have been in, it has been the Aliens that have been kicking all the butt. Flawed tactics on the part of just one teammate will NOT bring the whole team down. And just like the HA and HMG combos with upgrades, 3 hives usually, but not always, sounds the final bell for the marines. Onos time!
We also worked a team, so, I'm considdering the teams balanced in terms of working AS a team and using teamwork.
We couldn't get a 3rd hive Wile E, it was one of their main outposts that we couldn't take down because of the tactics I described above.
Wile E, play on servers with 20+ people, and you'll see a lot more marines winning...and usually slaughtering even the best of alien teams.
1 - There is no problem with the current system of ammo/health dropping. They do not enable the marines to win "every fight". If a commander chooses to spam health, he's forced to do that - at the cost of resources and micromanagement. And it's not terribly effective, on top of that.
2 - I cannot, in any way imaginable, see how this would get abused <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo-->
3 - Sieges are fine. They are EASY TO STOP, if your gorges know what they're doing. I've played too many games where a gorge makes a buncha defenses right in the hive and wanders off, only to get sieged from the next room over. As long as your team knows what to defend, sieges are no problem.
#4: It's TURRET. Not Turrent.
All of these have been discussed before and shot down. Sorry, you're not original.
Sure, griefers would abuse it, but I see people kicked and banned all the time, they'd be gone quickly. Maybe this would make the commander pick and choose who he gives the nade launcher too? all the better in my eyes.
seiges are NOT easy to stop when guarded by 8 ha/hmg/grenade/welder/health spammed marines, in fact, they are impossible to stop. We were directly assaulting those seiges. Sure, they are easy to stop if left undefended, but this was a big game, with a lot of skill all around.
These changes wouldn't break the game at all, in fact, they would make it a lot more fun for both sides.
None of the things I listed are a problem on 7v7 games, but in 11v11 or higher, they are serious problems.
#4: It's TURRET. Not Turrent.
All of these have been discussed before and shot down. Sorry, you're not original. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
We couldn't stop them. Thats the point I'm making, we simply couldn't stop them. We aren't noobs, we aren't bad. Both teams were very good, and both played very well. The game lasted over 2 hours! The problem is, 2 hives does not equal marines at TOP of tech tree.
Okay, so I spelled it wrong, sue me.
If ideas get shot down so easily, why have forums at all? I care not about my originality, ONLY one I had up there I had read before I posted, was #4.
ns is well balanced as far ar you described it.
However!
However however however. While the game you played was a good one, the problem in its eventual outcome didn't stem solely from what you consider 'broken' in the current version. Look at the issue deeper, and I think you should find that your problem with what happened is an almost direct consequence of the current resource model. I shall henceforth state my main message of all this:
IN GAMES 9 v. 9 OR HIGHER, THE RESOURCE MODEL IS TOO UNBALANCED TOWARDS THE MARINE TEAM.
There, I said it. The above statement is admittedly just my opinion... But think about it. Even *with* their commander phase and turret-farming no-name hive and mess hall (the map is ns_nancy BTW) the marines were still able to tech higher than you *when second hive got up*! They probably had lvl. 2 armor and weapons upgrades as well as heavy weapons. That's 'cuz with what... 3 res nodes, and 10 or more marines, the resource system allows the marines to tech up much faster than the aliens possibly can in the same amount of time. Just think - if the marine team had relied solely on human guards at no-name, and forgone a turret farm, you could have been seeing HMG jetbos flying around killing you before 2nd hive was half done!
But I digress... my point is, I don't think it's so much that the marines are broken so much so because of the reasons you listed. In my opinion, they're broken due to the *amount* of tech they can throw down on the board in a short amount of time, with that many players. 'Cuz lvl 2 aliens vs. fully teched marines are supposed to be an even match, right? I read that somewhere. But that assumes that the resources on both sides are within a certain range. It works best on 6 v 6 - 8 v 8 IMO. Above or below and you have serious imbalances that can mean big balance issues if utilized by either team.
So in conclusion, while some of your ideas are decent and some are a little shifty, I think in the future you should look deeper into what the problem with the game balance is, rather than trying to fix what's not really broken in the first place. :)
ns is well balanced as far ar you described it. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Real intelligent...yes, we managed to last over 2 hours against a great marine team cause we "sucked".
I guess everyone doing their job, lerks umbraing, gorges health spamming as much as possible, etc tec...we still sucked, try reading my post, go away, thanks.
If you want to just kinda avoid these problems in the future, I suggest hanging out on smaller servers. True, big 10v10+ games are fun once in a while, but nowadays it seems like they all boil down to marine tech rushes to jp/hmg before aliens can do anything. With smaller servers, it's less of a problem! So, you know... give it a shot some time; try playing mainly on like... 4v4 - 8v8 servers for a little while. If the problems you described in this post are still evident to you *then*, well then that's a different matter; but I mean... I play 6v6, 7v7 all the time, with both good and bad teams (pub servers are great that way LOL) and I honestly don't see there being balance issues like you were describing. True, nades are bad... but in smaller games, they're less of a huge problem, as commanders can't afford to drop 3 of them. If and when they show up on the games I play, it's either a last-ditch effort by the marines to push aliens out, or it's that crucial mid-game phase where either side can win, but neither side has the res to really dominate yet. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> Now that's fun stuff.
And lastly - siege right now in 1.04 is too crappy right now to *need* to be nerfed. Maybe if the whole LOS deal worked like you'd *think* it works you may need to balance a little, but even then I doubt it. But just to state my opinion, I think a hive 'counter-siege' is just a plain bad idea.. skulks and lerks are supposed to be the aliens' most effective counter to siege. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> Tho I know it's not always how it works out, the current system of having to ping hives and/or have a marine stand basically directly under a hive seems to work pretty well. It's better than having siege just hit *everything* whether a marine is there or not, right?
I have read that somewhere once before, and I agree. But honestly, I feel thats only part of the problem. Even if you cut back the resources a bit, I think if the marines can just manage to hold off till they reach their top tech and they work well together, they will still be using the same "problems" to make life hell (and yes, I realize you can't win them all, but a chance would be nice <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> ).
I don't think 3 seconds is that bad, I'd comprimise to 2 at best. I figure at 3 seconds you'd be able to heal one person once, everytime he needed it. You throw that into a big firefight, with bodies dropping all over anyway, and you manage to still be able to save about 4 people (because the one you healed got kills, in a perfect world).
In reguards to the limit on nade ammo, I figured 18 would require them to hug the armory more, or simply have to be baby-sat by the comm more. Honestly, 18 grenades is enough to kill a hive (I think?? it should be if its not, lol)
With health spamming... 1 per second is enough to keep a steady flow of meds on the ground, but not enough so that a skulk/lerk/fade biting or clawing won't be able to kill a marine before the next medpack comes. Any more than that and I don't think medpacks could drop fast enough to save a group of marines from an attack. And like it or not, medpack spam *is* a valid part of the game, so completely taking it away would IMO take away a vital part of marine gameplay. And as much as I think about it, I can't really think of how it would make the game better to completely take spamming out of the game. True, I hate or love medpack spam as much as the next guy (whether I'm on aliens or marines, respectively <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->) but taking out the spam tactic would be like saying defense chambers can't heal aliens whenever there's gunfire in a certain radius of the chamber; it just doesn't work. You'll notice that medpack spamming in smaller games is a *much* riskier business than in huge games, as on a smaller team you don't necessarily HAVE the res to spend on med spamming...
Lastly - I tested this out earlier tonight. A grenade launcher with Lvl. 3 weapon upgrades will take down a fully healed hive in 27 direct shots. That's without any D chambers around the hive healing it. 27 to kill a hive, and that's with full upgrades... That's a lotta freakin' 'nades. LOL But take it from a player who favors HA/GL above all else... Those nades run out FAST, and the cost to the commander to keep you supplied with ammo out in the field is a *lot*. Trust me on this, nerfing the clip size would be terribly unfair to all us 'nade users. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
god yes
Wow, 27! Thats incredible considdering how quickly they take most everything else down.
Alien tech is based in Real-Estate (Holding living hives)
Marine Tech is based on time (Spending Acumulated Resource Points)
The Tech trees are pretty even WHEN and only WHEN marines have good team work. A bunch of HA/HMG/GL's welding each other and getting ammo from COM can kill ono's but the Onos can kill them too.
Now you are not wrong Tier 3 Marines kick the snot out of Tier 2 Aliens, just like Tier 3 aliens kill Tier 2 Marines, but its just that. If you get behind in tech no matter what side you are on, no matter how good your FPS skills are (assuming equally skilled opponents), you is gonna die smokey.
The real problems lie in the resource model as other people have mentioned.
Some guy somewhere posted a really nice analysis of what exactly the problem is, sorry I dont have the link.
i want to address the things about medpack spamming first. see how the defense chambers heal everything around it at the same rate, no matter how many aliens are there. making the medpacks have a cooldown wouldnt be much of a problem for small games, and bigger problem for large games, because u have a lot more people to heal. i have an alternative solution:
After a medpack (or 2) is picked up, there should be a time limit before the marine can pick up another one.
so marines cant get over +100 hp without waiting first, and no matter how many players there are, its the same effect.
and as for fully tech'ed marines being better than 2 hive aliens, i think thats fair, as a matter of fact, i think marines need a better boost to overcome hive 2 aliens just as hive 3 aliens overcome fully tech'ed marines. particlarly in HA and nade launchers. anyways i just think the tech order goes like this, just remember its just simply my opinion, im not saying "this is how the game works, idiot!"
-Level 1-
LMG (0 res), Skulk (0 res)
Shotgun (16)
Lerk (33)
-Advanced Armory-
HMG (25)
-Hive 2-
Fade (54)
-Prototype Lab-
HMG+HA (50)
-Hive 3-
Onos (70)
so as i see it, with 2 hives u guys were behind in the tech tree, u needed that 3rd hive or u needed to cut off their resources. im just saying that i think it's valid that marines have a chance against 2 hives as long as they have enough resources to tech. how many nodes did they have anyway?
<!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
It seems to me that your entire point comes down to the fact that 2 hive aliens cannot fight against fully upgraded marines. I'm not going to argue whether or not that is true. But I would like to point out that you are comparing fully upgraded marines to aliens that are not fully evolved. If you had onos, grenades wouldn't be as much of a problem, if at all.
If the marines became fully upgraded at the same time you got your 2nd hive that tells me that you were building and expanding too slowly. I'll say this more clearly and more generally:
Just because you have 2 hives, does not mean that you should be able to decimate any marine team. Hardly. "n00b-factor" aside, It also depends on where the marines are in their technology tree.
So before everyone gets all hot and bothered about balance, check yourself and see if your team did everything they were supposed to do. As Kharaa, whenever I hear the first boom of a grenade and see HAs everywhere, I start to think, "Damn, we should have built faster and we should have hit their resources and equipment harder." Because case and point, the marines didn't start out with all that stuff. You let them get it because of your complacency.
There's a lot more to the game than getting a 2nd hive fellas.