Dear Flay, My Theory On Ns Balancing
SilentSam
Join Date: 2003-04-15 Member: 15532Members
Join Date: 2003-04-15 Member: 15532Members
<div class="IPBDescription">An economic problem</div> <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>My theory on NS balancing</span>
<b>An economic problem</b>
Because NS gameplay revolves around two scarce resources, namely time and resources, a lot of real-world economics apply to the game (which is also why I find this game so captivating). The exact cause of why Khara have been so much more successful then Frontiersman may become more evident when looked at from this perspective. What I would like to do is first, briefly analyse the two competing economies, and subsequently discuss their relative strengths.
It is no secret that aliens generally have a much more individual-centered game. Yes, resource nodes distribute resources evenly, but once handed out resources are an individual’s property, and that individual has full responsibility over their actions. In addition, R4K also grants a way for an individual to build his own wealth. Also, there is no central figure with aliens – all aliens enjoy equality of opportunity and almost infinite personal freedoms. They may al be created equal, but each alien’s potential is solely up to him. All in all, these traits are characteristic of a free-market economy. With some notable exceptions, the consequences of one’s actions affect the individual at their source a lot more then anyone else on the same team. Co-operation is up to the individuals, though often encouraged by necessity. Like capitalism, playing in the alien economic system is about choice and individuality.
On the other hand we have the Frontiersmen. Unlike the aliens, they share a resource pool, and R4K increases the team’s wealth but in no way does it affect the individual directly. Even though individual marines share some part of responsibility, none of them directly feels responsible for anything in particular other then following an order. The actual responsibility relies overwhelmingly on the commander. An individual’s choices are very limited: He can ask for things but nothing is guaranteed. On the bright side, marines do enjoy a much higher level of communication and organisation though the medium of the commander. This particular economic system can be best classified as a command economy. The game version shares many of the draw-backs of its real-world counter part. For example, a lack of personal responsibility: An individual either follows orders, and thus the commander takes responsibility, or an individual is not given an order and thus goes off to do their own thing (again, the commander bears responsibility). In addition no individual draws any direct benefit from making the right choices – all these things fall in the hands of central command. The Frontiersmen’s economic system revolves around the commander and his ability (or failure) to lead.
So then, the central conflict of NS should begin to look very familiar: a war (one might even say a cold one) between a free-market economy and a command economy. And once again, the free market prevails <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->. A good alien player is rewarded with resources (through R4K) and grows stronger. Resources accumulate in the best players and since they are the ones who will make the best of them, you get the best possible bang for your buck - and it’s all inherent. A good marine player doesn’t just have to be good, but has to catch the commander’s eye as well. Allocating the best equipment to the best marine is a task often beyond a commander’s capacity (because time is oh so scarce in the command chair). Unlike aliens, who know what stuff they can make best use of and buy it themselves, marines can’t keep track of an individual’s strengths and weakness. Yes, the issue can be tackled with communication, which is why a well organised marine team with years of experience playing together can live up to the alien’s inherent organisation, but the problem still stands that in a pub game, a collection of strangers, they fail misserably. .
So Flayra, here is your problem: capitalism organises aliens, and it does so quite well. Marines don’t have this luxury, so their team can either turn out to be soviet communism in the case of strangers getting together under the command of another stranger, or a corporation in the case of a well organised team. The problem is that as far as casual play goes, few marine teams can reach that level of organisation, especially one that can out manoeuvre a free-market team <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->.
As far as solutions go, this essay isn’t really about that – it is about identifying the problem: Aliens are inherently organised because they bear full responsibility of their actions, and marines suffer from chronic diffusion of responsibility. Nerfing each side can address the symptoms but not the source. To address the source, you will either have to give more individual choice and responsibility to marines OR greatly improve on-the-fly cooperation on their team somehow. I understand that marines and Khara need to have a few distinctions of this type, but handing one of them a plainly inferior system shouldn’t be one of them.
<b>An economic problem</b>
Because NS gameplay revolves around two scarce resources, namely time and resources, a lot of real-world economics apply to the game (which is also why I find this game so captivating). The exact cause of why Khara have been so much more successful then Frontiersman may become more evident when looked at from this perspective. What I would like to do is first, briefly analyse the two competing economies, and subsequently discuss their relative strengths.
It is no secret that aliens generally have a much more individual-centered game. Yes, resource nodes distribute resources evenly, but once handed out resources are an individual’s property, and that individual has full responsibility over their actions. In addition, R4K also grants a way for an individual to build his own wealth. Also, there is no central figure with aliens – all aliens enjoy equality of opportunity and almost infinite personal freedoms. They may al be created equal, but each alien’s potential is solely up to him. All in all, these traits are characteristic of a free-market economy. With some notable exceptions, the consequences of one’s actions affect the individual at their source a lot more then anyone else on the same team. Co-operation is up to the individuals, though often encouraged by necessity. Like capitalism, playing in the alien economic system is about choice and individuality.
On the other hand we have the Frontiersmen. Unlike the aliens, they share a resource pool, and R4K increases the team’s wealth but in no way does it affect the individual directly. Even though individual marines share some part of responsibility, none of them directly feels responsible for anything in particular other then following an order. The actual responsibility relies overwhelmingly on the commander. An individual’s choices are very limited: He can ask for things but nothing is guaranteed. On the bright side, marines do enjoy a much higher level of communication and organisation though the medium of the commander. This particular economic system can be best classified as a command economy. The game version shares many of the draw-backs of its real-world counter part. For example, a lack of personal responsibility: An individual either follows orders, and thus the commander takes responsibility, or an individual is not given an order and thus goes off to do their own thing (again, the commander bears responsibility). In addition no individual draws any direct benefit from making the right choices – all these things fall in the hands of central command. The Frontiersmen’s economic system revolves around the commander and his ability (or failure) to lead.
So then, the central conflict of NS should begin to look very familiar: a war (one might even say a cold one) between a free-market economy and a command economy. And once again, the free market prevails <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->. A good alien player is rewarded with resources (through R4K) and grows stronger. Resources accumulate in the best players and since they are the ones who will make the best of them, you get the best possible bang for your buck - and it’s all inherent. A good marine player doesn’t just have to be good, but has to catch the commander’s eye as well. Allocating the best equipment to the best marine is a task often beyond a commander’s capacity (because time is oh so scarce in the command chair). Unlike aliens, who know what stuff they can make best use of and buy it themselves, marines can’t keep track of an individual’s strengths and weakness. Yes, the issue can be tackled with communication, which is why a well organised marine team with years of experience playing together can live up to the alien’s inherent organisation, but the problem still stands that in a pub game, a collection of strangers, they fail misserably. .
So Flayra, here is your problem: capitalism organises aliens, and it does so quite well. Marines don’t have this luxury, so their team can either turn out to be soviet communism in the case of strangers getting together under the command of another stranger, or a corporation in the case of a well organised team. The problem is that as far as casual play goes, few marine teams can reach that level of organisation, especially one that can out manoeuvre a free-market team <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->.
As far as solutions go, this essay isn’t really about that – it is about identifying the problem: Aliens are inherently organised because they bear full responsibility of their actions, and marines suffer from chronic diffusion of responsibility. Nerfing each side can address the symptoms but not the source. To address the source, you will either have to give more individual choice and responsibility to marines OR greatly improve on-the-fly cooperation on their team somehow. I understand that marines and Khara need to have a few distinctions of this type, but handing one of them a plainly inferior system shouldn’t be one of them.
Comments
Hey look, I even made a <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=5&t=44672' target='_blank'>sister thread</a> just for that purpose!
but i like the game for exactly that difference in teamstrategies 8 )
its no problem, its just fine tune
Because people an inherently self-serving and stupid.
<!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
That being said, the analysis of the two economies neglects to mention that when aliens don't work as a team, they lose as well. You see this on pubs where everyone saves for Onos and nobody bothers to put up the hive. So to say that it's purely "You do well and you get rewarded" really doesn't encompass the whole of the situation, as some team-members tend to sacrifice their own goals for the good of the team. In a purely capitalist situation, this shouldn't lead to any increase in the team winning, and in fact should be detrimental, since the players who self-sacrifice might be more efficient individually if they didn't and went fade or something instead. Since it does, we know that the "free-market" system you're ascribing to isn't the whole issue. Which goes to show that one system isn't necessarily inferior to the other, they're just different.
It's true the marine team has a much larger emphasis on the commander. A good commander can win games even up against this so called alien advantage. A bad commander will lose them. On the alien team, a bad alien won't stuff up the whole team as much, but on the other hand, a good alien won't make as much difference to the odds of the team winning.
Does this mean the marines are inferior by design? Hardly. It simply shows a difference in emphasis between the two teams. The marines have a "most important player" while the aliens do not.
On the otherhand with Kharaa, a greedy individual will mess up his team much more. When properly employing teamwork and a "there is no I in team" mentality, Kharaa are great. But even amongst a good Khraa pub team, there is probably gonna be a few "I in team" players.
To respond to Kwil and lazygamer, let me illustrate further what I mean by marines being able to behave either as pinkos or a company:
When a person makes a company he or she have to have a good idea of what they want. They hire the best people they can and make sure everyone can work together - so you get something that works very VERY well, even though a company is really a miniature command economy and the boss/CEO is The High Commander/Supreme Overlord.
Now, if you try to apply the same thing to a scenario where you don't have a guy with the best idea of things in command, and he doesn't really pick whom he may or may not do business with, the system fails.
Again, this is about choice and responsibility. Yes, aliens do need to cooperate - BUT they do so on their own mutually agreed on terms. In pub games, you may not have the best alien team, but the good people who understand eachother form a little group which wins the game. The n00bs form their own little comapny doing things the conservative way (building up stuff, saving for onos) which may not be the best strategy, but that doesn't bother you as a good player because you can go do things with as many or as little people as you can or want.
Now if you had the same distribution of good and bad players in a marine team, things work out differently. Who knows who will jump into the comm chair? If you want to split up from the main group with your 3 buddies that you can get along with you can only do so many things. See communism didn't fail (economically) just because people exploited the system, but because it does not allow capable individuals to do thier thing - same goes for marines in this case.
All the marines really need is more choice, so they can manage themselves better.
Also 1 good alien could GREATLY change the tide of war since he would have a lot more resource points than a normal alien and could either go onos before the 10 minutes mark or make hives/RTs/Chambers or simply kill all of the marines to not allow them to do anything.
On the other hand, 1 good marine as the thread starter said is not as nearly as beneficial to the team as a good alien, having a good commander is not sufficient, you need to have decent marines who follow orders, marines who don't follow their Commander's orders are bound to lose no matter how good they all are.
As for the thread starter, brilliant post that I believe hit the nail right on the head of the major balance issue in the game, one of the main problems I see is that because of this the times where the games are evenly matched are scarce and that way it's either marines win big time or aliens win big time (and the outcome is mainly dependant on the marines).
Now if you had the same distribution of good and bad players in a marine team, things work out differently. Who knows who will jump into the comm chair? If you want to split up from the main group with your 3 buddies that you can get along with you can only do so many things. See communism didn't fail (economically) just because people exploited the system, but because it does not allow capable individuals to do thier thing - same goes for marines in this case.
All the marines really need is more choice, so they can manage themselves better. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Okay, I agee with what you've said, but you still haven't shown that the marine system is inherently worse than the aliens system. What you've shown is that you've got marines who don't understand the idea of being a marine team. This is where the Most Important Player bit I was talking about comes in.
If you've got a good group of you and your 3 marine buddies, the rest of your team is sorta lame, and one of your good group doesn't get into the chair? No kidding you've lost -- you've lost because you didn't understand how important the commander is, not because you're at some inherent disadvantage because you don't get to pick your own gun.
The commander can make or break a marine team. Period. This is how it was designed. It's not an "inferior" system, it's a different one. Marine players need to be aware of this.. it's part of the skill of playing as a marine. The good alien player who manages to get Onos before the ten minute mark will fall to the good commander who sets mines and provides shotgunts.
So while I generally agree with the premise and analysis of your argument (though I still disagree that aliens are purely free-choice. Play on a pub some day where the aliens don't communicate and each does only what they want. See what pure free-choice actually does to their odds of winning) I disagree with the conclusions.
I think a much better point to focus on, rather than the nature of the systems, are the specific imbalances between the two -- for instance, the time issue is currently slanted rather heavily in favor of the aliens as they start with an IP equivalent and, depending on the number of aliens, have enough res to cap every node on the map while the marines can cap four at most. What's worse is that every res node they cap adds to their advantage not only in the flow of res but by also delaying when the marine team can put their own res-node down at that point. Not to mention provides the aliens with information as to where the marines are - thus further delaying how soon their res-node is able to be placed, as their builder has to leave off building to fight the defenders.
Actually, command economies are better at conventional war.
More to the point:
I don't believe the problem lies in economics in terms of money, but in the economics of players. Both teams have a constant stream of players up to some limiting point. You have to 'spend' players to attack/defend/build/repair. Players allocated to one task can be switched to another for the cost of time. The big point comes in that aliens require alot less time to switch tatics (better go save that rt I see flashing red on my screen!) While marines have to rely on the commander for a great deal of their information, thus they take longer to respond to emergencies.
Some 'good' commanders will tell pub marines to guard a res node. This has three outcomes: The marine gets bored and runs off, Marine defends until ordered elsewhere, or marine dies. All three solutions 'cost' one marine. The alternative to this is turrets, which cost quite a bit of res and time but, in theory, no marines. However, you cannot turretfarm a resnode and leave it there, you need a constant supply of marines going in there and patrolling/welding every few minutes. This means that you need to have a few marines delegated to patrolling everything. Patrols bring up more problems: too many phasegates means that attacking forces require more time to begin attacking again after they die, but too few means patrols will die in route to their destination.
Whats the point?
To destroy an entire marine base (if no marines are present) it only costs the aliens one player. To defend the base, it would cost the marines at least two people.
Skulks are made to be 'better' than stock marines. That means it costs the aliens fewer players in direct combat. 2 skulks > 3 marines.
A good alien defense can stop up to 3 marines, but fall to one with a grenade launcher. However, because of the faster response time (and generally faster moving times of aliens) skulks can be on the scene and eating marines before anything catastrophic happens.
I'm sure there are many more examples of this, but it comes down to the fact that when comparing alien players to marine players, not only do marines have a slight disadvantage with having to have a commander that cannot participate in combat, but they are less efficient than their alien counterparts.
How do you make marines work together?
Introduce the hero system from wc3! ;P
But in all honesty, it is possible to get marines to work together if you are a good commander. And in my opinion, a good commmander is one that has the social skills to make people want to follow him.
If you want to command, you must be a people-person as well as a tactician. You can be a brilliant tactician, but if you can't encourage even the most foolhardy newbies to like you enough to follow you, then you aren't going to do well on pub servers.
On the other hand, if you are a great person to follow as a leader; but don't have the tactical skills to make it happen; it doesn't matter either.
Oh, and the difference between kharaa dm-ing and marine teamplay is not much different, because if kharaa don't work together as well they will get schooled just as much, its just there is a higher margin of error for aliens in their teamplay, and a much lower margin of error for their own skills.
omg, super double edits: i'm going to actually think of a hero system that would somehow fit in ns, not that I think it would ever get implimented, but I like sharing funky ideas <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
The VAST majority of Marine play is spend getting to 'x.'
The VAST majority of Alien play is killing the marines getting to 'x.'
The more Aliens there are, the more money they have.
The more Marines there are, the less efficient your money is.
To take out a tech/upgrade for the Marines, means you must destroy one building.
To take out a tech for the Aliens means you must destroy all buildings of that type, or the hive associated with them.
As you can see, the Aliens have a much easier time buying, protecting, and building structures. They have units that can put down and build structures. They can build as many structures at one time as there are Aliens. The Marines need the commander to put it down, and the commander immediately takes out one builder.
The whole communism/capitalism argument does not really suit the game, because it is far too limiting. It's an ok simile, as was said, but in no way encompasses enough of the real problems and solutions represented in the real world.
Though, the problem with communism was the exploitation of power, as it's nearly impossible to have a nation without a centralized body to actually hold stuff together. There was the weakness in communits govermnment, the higher officials often had greater wealth. Ah, but the commander has no wealth, he has no weapons of his own. This is the counter argument to Sam's argument.
Something else just struck me, though. The actual tickwork of capitalism. Captialists must attempt to lure customers to their product. They can make the prices lower, the product better, or other methods. Then, their competitor must counter with lower prices or better quality or risk losing all of their business. This drives prices down, quality up, and promotes the welfare of the customer. But look at communism... since there is no competition, the government has no incentive to increase quality or lower prices.
Just like the commander really has no incentive to get better weapons or armor. It really irritates me when they just go for turret farms and don't even bother with an arms lab, or even a welder.
Yes, he does. It's called winning. It's what both teams try to do.
<!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
teamwork makes every team work better (duh, puns) so good alien teams use teamwork and they are suddenly running at 150% effectiveness, and begin to slaughter the marines.
Flayra sees this and adjusts the teams, (marine buff or alien nerf) but now the aliens are requiring some amount of teamwork to do the same amount of wins.
It will become an endless task until the teams are so "balanced" that they are the same in essence. to truely provide two different balanced teams, it can only be accomplished through obfuscation, (making things very complicated so that the end user doesnt see that the two teams are the same)
then of course theres the fact that pubber marines do nto ahve total teamwork, if both teams have semi teamwork, the marines are at a 50% disadvantage and the aliens at 25% disadvantage. guess who is going to win? because pub and clan games are so radically different in terms of teamwork, they simply cannot both be balanced int he same version. perhaps this is what mp_tournamentmode is for, and we should be pushing for more changes in this version of the game.
J/K <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Make R4K give a marine a personal res supply. He can buy equipment with it near an armory or prototype lab so that way the better players can get a shotty out earlier if they are good. Its their responsibility to not lose it again as well since its their res. Also works with welders and other stuff that has been researched.
<!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> </end stupid idea>
That marine's r4k will pay for his shotgun.
The problem, though, is that then you have even MORE rambo marines running out of the base looking for kills, and probably dying more often than not, which just feeds the aliens.
We [p4] folk talked about this and think we have a workable solution. Give the marine all the r4k he earns. However, when he dies, flush part or all of his personal res pool back to the commander. This rewards the players that gun down lots of aliens without themselves dying, such as the dedicated base defenders (and really, they deserve to get a shotty if they want one, but the comm is often too busy elsewhere to drop them stuff, or even to keep track of who it is that's been fending off all those attacks).
Naturally, the comm can still drop gear to anyone he wants - the personal pools just let marines take care of themselves to some extent if the comm is busy elsewhere.
Hmmm, a small personal pool. Could be nice to have but it can't be overwhelming. Flushing part of the pool into the main team's supply would be a nice way to impose a penalty on that system to prevent rambos getting out of hand....not sure whether this would reduce the effectof a commander or not though but this is an interesting idea
That might get spammy, though. I already get annoyed with frequent radioers because they prevent me from being able to quickly jump to the marine who REALLY needed help. If it was an actual popup dialog that I had to dismiss, I'd tear my hair out.
Doesn't make a noise and you don't have to hit anything.. it goes away after about 5 seconds.
The aliens follow the ideal - "do what is best for yourself and the team".
The marine system my not be harmed by individual greed. It is harmed by lazyness / disobedience and there is no way to slap you forces inot line as in a true military system. the marine system follows no worldy system as in all militarys there is this conrol over the troops.
In a competent marine team, this can be overlooked and the system can be seen as a communist despotism.
The despotism should be able to win out militaraly if the commander is competent and the troops equal to the aliens. This is simply as the marines can direct their efforts - such as building an early game economy. where as the aliens will tend to do their own thing -that is unless the aliens work togther more than they go for personal gain.
So when two highly compentent teams play thir differnces should be nullified and the marines come out one man down (the comm). this may explain some of the aliens dominance.
Also the fact that aliens gain res faster in smaller games while a bigger percentage of manpower is commanding in smaller games mean that 6v6 clan games are easy alien wins. Anyone tried 12v12 ? the marines can put so much firepower into one place they are unstoppable.
Yeah, that happens to me to regulary, trying to save up for people that are taking RT & a Hive when you have people at base complaining cause that can't get a Gun, it annoys the crap out of me.
I dunno, I find this idea really captivating. Being able to reward myself with a shottie when I've been a good base defender would make me feel much better about my job.
If you feel underpriveledged because your elite LMG skills aren't getting recognized, go play CS.