The Res System Is Balanced For How Many?
Tempus
Join Date: 2003-01-21 Member: 12540Members
Join Date: 2003-01-21 Member: 12540Members
It seems to me that the res system was designed for 6 players per side. Any less than that, and the aliens have a large advantage, and as the numbers increase, the aliens have a larger and larger disadvantage. With 9+ players, the aliens can wait all game just to get the needed onos, which by the time they can afford it, it is usually too late.
The thing is, most servers have way more than 12 players, so I'm wondering why the resource system hasn't been adjusted to accomodate more players. I know that matches are 6 on 6, but most games played are not matches.
Any thoughts on this?
The thing is, most servers have way more than 12 players, so I'm wondering why the resource system hasn't been adjusted to accomodate more players. I know that matches are 6 on 6, but most games played are not matches.
Any thoughts on this?
Comments
The marines accually get 2 res per tick if they have over 10 marines (I think) The alien res system is so dependent on the number of people anything above 20 players in a server the marines are almost garenteed a ring.
I personally would like to try nerfing the res given to aliens and allow them to give resources to each other if they go up to each other and hold a key to "+giveres" or something. Might help to bring back some of that cordination and teamwork that used to exist in 1.x
Gosh, that's sensible. What about the people that are Gorge? They <b>are</b> an important part of the Alien side.
Thats kinda impossible <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> Max allowed is 32.
Furthermore, with so many players, the marines can just greatly outspawn the aliens, particularly with one hive.
Since our server started getting more 8on8 games, marines have been dominating. In addition to the res model situation, the marines are capable of bringing 7 guns to the same point, and the aliens can't possibly respond to that. With the now 'electify and forget' system, marines can concentrate power on a level far greater than the aliens, and as the player count increases, the disparity is greater. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Aliens have no available equivalent for electricity. Marines can drop res and forget about. It takes a few gorges, and few skulks, and a long window of oppertunity to take a node down, while one knife weilding rambo can easily take alien res down.
Also, with the electricity, marines are building bosai bases that only a coordinated group of fades and oneses can destroy. 2 hive lock downs are back, and the vast control of the res because of electricty.
I'm very glad there will be spacing between marines structures in 3.0 because this crap is getting annoying.
Here is a little something for you. Let's take StarCraft for example, you control a group of 8 marines, you have 5 hydras attacking you. Now think, will you suffer the least damage if you concentrated the firepower onto 1 hydra killing, it then move on to the next, or will you suffer the least from shooting at all of them at once. (Look down for answer, but think a while first <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> )
Ok, this is known to all veteran SC players that the concentrated is by far more effective as you neutralize one threat fast rather than many slowly.
Now what does this have to do with your post? Well see the marine's res as concentrated firepower flowing in, and the alien res as the slow but everyone gets their own <b> little </b> share.
Of course the aliens spawn with 25 res each, but are there really enough nozzles to support that many aliens?
1 res per node every 5 seconds.
I could look up a previous post of mine where I actually worked it out properly. But I dunno if it will still be there and I can't be sodded <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--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-->Of course the aliens spawn with 25 res each, but are there really enough nozzles to support that many aliens? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, but at the same time, there are 6 aliens spawning with 25 res in a standard match. That is a lot of node power that aliens hold and can attain fairly quickly at the start.
You accually need a couple of OCs around nodes to be sure that that rambos wont be able to stay long, or they will increas your reaction time to get there.
I still think that the most blanced way for the aliens would be to have a give res system where aliens get less total res over all. This would help cordinate, you could accually have a gorge all game and people could give it the res for everything they needed, I mean the cost of everythng would need to be tweaked, but the teamplay benifits would totally out weigh any difficulties in blanching this system out.
Aliens excel in sheer numbers. Their res flow sinks but they can still manage to win. Why? The commander. Yeah, he is suck trying to organize 13+ marines on the other side. Just pick off the stray ones while he is busy on the other side of the map. Lots of res in that. Just try not to stay gorge all map and you'll be fine. Balance in NS and the res system is completly based on how you choose to play the game.
actually your wrong there <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> , i was kidding about the max 42 NS server, but in a CS and TFC server i played in a game of max 42, dont believe me go look for one in CS or tfc, theres a few
The more I play, the more I realize that the game doesn't work well with anything less than 6v6 or more than 7v7. Very narrow range if you ask me..
Sure, if the team is bigger than 7 players they get res really slow, but what really hurts is waiting to spawn. I played a 32 person server once (PA 4th anniversary last year), you would sit for 3 minutes in spawn queue. On a 16 person team we never had more than 6 people on the map at any time after the first minutes because everyone was waiting to spawn. The marines biggest advantage in a big game is their ability to outspawn the aliens in the first minutes before the 2nd hive is done.
If the aliens can get the 2nd and maybe 3rd hive up then things get interesting in a big game. See, each alien starts with 25 res. In a 6 person (public) game you want to get up 3-5 rts so nearly everyone has to spend their starting 25. Someone also needs to save for the hive and someone has to save for the d chambers. Now on a 11+ player team only half the team has to spend their starting res to get the same number of rts up, plus hive and upgrade chambers. So where with the 6 man team you had maybe 1 guy saving for fade now you have 4-6 guys saving for fade. Sure they might be slowed down a little since you won't be making much res from RTs but starting at 25 you're already half there and it doesn't take that long with a few kills.
On a big marine team comming is just stupidly easy. There is no problem with trying to control 12+ marines, you don't have to control them, let them wander and rambo. Drop 3 or 4 ips, an armory and and armslab. Spend all your res on upgrades and grabbing rts when your troops happen to wander past them. After a while start directing them towards objectives like hives. Aliens can't keep rts up if 12+ marines are roaming. The simple fact is that with 12+ soldier there are simply so many guns you can bring to bear on a target that nothing can stand against it. And since upgrade costs don't scale according to team size the more players you have the more worthwhile armslab upgrades are. It shouldn't be hard at all to just lmg rush and take down any hive.
Personally I think anything bigger than 14 players makes it too hard for aliens. Aliens can still win bigger games, it just gets a lot harder. If aliens do win games it's probably due to a significant skill difference.
Now come back to our server! <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Sure, if the team is bigger than 7 players they get res really slow, but what really hurts is waiting to spawn. I played a 32 person server once (PA 4th anniversary last year), you would sit for 3 minutes in spawn queue. On a 16 person team we never had more than 6 people on the map at any time after the first minutes because everyone was waiting to spawn. The marines biggest advantage in a big game is their ability to outspawn the aliens in the first minutes before the 2nd hive is done.
If the aliens can get the 2nd and maybe 3rd hive up then things get interesting in a big game. See, each alien starts with 25 res. In a 6 person (public) game you want to get up 3-5 rts so nearly everyone has to spend their starting 25. Someone also needs to save for the hive and someone has to save for the d chambers. Now on a 11+ player team only half the team has to spend their starting res to get the same number of rts up, plus hive and upgrade chambers. So where with the 6 man team you had maybe 1 guy saving for fade now you have 4-6 guys saving for fade. Sure they might be slowed down a little since you won't be making much res from RTs but starting at 25 you're already half there and it doesn't take that long with a few kills.
On a big marine team comming is just stupidly easy. There is no problem with trying to control 12+ marines, you don't have to control them, let them wander and rambo. Drop 3 or 4 ips, an armory and and armslab. Spend all your res on upgrades and grabbing rts when your troops happen to wander past them. After a while start directing them towards objectives like hives. Aliens can't keep rts up if 12+ marines are roaming. The simple fact is that with 12+ soldier there are simply so many guns you can bring to bear on a target that nothing can stand against it. And since upgrade costs don't scale according to team size the more players you have the more worthwhile armslab upgrades are. It shouldn't be hard at all to just lmg rush and take down any hive.
Personally I think anything bigger than 14 players makes it too hard for aliens. Aliens can still win bigger games, it just gets a lot harder. If aliens do win games it's probably due to a significant skill difference. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--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-->On a big marine team comming is just stupidly easy. There is no problem with trying to control 12+ marines, you don't have to control them, let them wander and rambo. Drop 3 or 4 ips, an armory and and armslab. Spend all your res on upgrades and grabbing rts when your troops happen to wander past them. After a while start directing them towards objectives like hives. Aliens can't keep rts up if 12+ marines are roaming. The simple fact is that with 12+ soldier there are simply so many guns you can bring to bear on a target that nothing can stand against it. And since upgrade costs don't scale according to team size the more players you have the more worthwhile armslab upgrades are. It shouldn't be hard at all to just lmg rush and take down any hive.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> OMG! Don't tell everyone my strategy!.. This works very well though, even if you get 2 marines wandering the map getting res nodes, the aliens can't get to the rts fast enough in small games.
IMO, the game is balanced for 6v6.. the aliens have enough where one or two gorges wont make a difference, while the marines do not have too many where you can't get a skulk near a group of marines.
Its also dependent on the skill level of the teams, a 3 player team of skilled marines vs a 6 player team of newbie aliens, the marines would win every time.. if the teams were reversed, the aliens would win all the time. You cannot balance the game for every single time its played.. Have you played a 1v1 lately? Its unbalanced, the alien will win every time if they know what they are doing. How about a 3v3? With 1-3 alien gorges, its impossible to take down electrified marine res nodes.
if cs can be played with 32 players on those tiny little maps. then Ns can be played perfectly on a 32 player server.
for one people don't respawn in CS
Thats why before you actually play the game. do these steps.
1. Figure out what you are going to do
2. Do what you gotta do to achieve your goal.
3. DO IT.
for 1, what i mean is, if you are planning on ONOSING, get lots and lots of killz. simple as that. if your going to get res towers, get some kills first so you can at least drop 1 OC to protect the res tower.
if aliens get any more res per tick, i will never play ns again, as it will just be pointless and pathetic, if you can onos in under 5 mins with 12 aliens, then im sure u can onos in under 5 mins with 8 aliens.
Marines dont need any more res either. remmember that killz give res to marines also. what i ussualy try do in a game of 8 v 8 or more is get 1 guy to stay at base, and get the rest to camp all the res towers i drop, 1 guy at base can build the stuff i drop. its a perfect and unbeatable tacic unless your team is very very crap.
in a nutshell, niether marines or aliens need more res per click.
solution: aliens want more res ? go kill
marines want more res ? protect your damn res towers.
The game probably was made for 6v6, but to be fair to <i>all</i> players it should be balanced for 16v16 because some people, myself among them, prefer larger games. And yea, with res crawling in at such a slow pace, devicenull and madcap's strategy works quite well, because it takes forever to replace those buildings, assuming your team is gracious enough to take them down. Which denies you that much more res for that much time. If you are lucky and get into a game with a good alien team, then the anti strategy is quite simple: Someone earlier gave the analogy of 12 marines versus 5 hydralisks. Turn that around (and back into NS), and you get several skulks (Alpha Team)versus a few humans. If the skulks are fast and efficient killers, they can defend the map by taking out each of the guerrilla marines and while the gorges (Bravo Team) sets up house and a group of higher evolutions (Charlie Team) camp marine base and lay waste to outposts.
But that doesn't happen all that often (at least not to me) so the "Set up <4mp & Let l00se" marine pubber strategy tends to work just fine... To my dismay perhaps.
**EDIT** I forgot to mention that the three teams switch out to maximize res flow and speed up the base building process. I mean why keep the skulks on Alpha Team on gaurd duty if they each have 34 to 47 res? When its been done before me, the gorges, myself included, though I'm not the best of skulks, went on Alpha after some of the original members were overloaded with res.
Now come back to our server! <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
TG has too many problems, I probably won't be playing there anytime soon.
And thats assuming I had time to play, damn finals week coming up.