An Essay On Balance Issues…

Savant · March 2004

<div class="IPBDescription">Only for those with long attention spans</div> An essay on balance issues…
Only for those with a long attention span

<i>If you don’t plan on reading the entire post, please don’t reply. This post is nearly 3500 words long and is intended for those who enjoy a good read on this subject.</i>

Balance has to be one of the most contentious issues in the game, but it’s also the most complicated. Even a simple change can have unintended effects.

There are many people who feel that one team has the advantage in this game, and I used to think that was the case <i>overall</i>. However, I studied *MY* playing patterns, and I realized that I usually never play on the really small servers. As such, my observations are that of larger games. While larger games do comprise the majority of people playing at any given time, the smaller games can’t be ignored either since they too have a following. (not to say they are often clan based) I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t really spent much time considering the impact of balance in smaller games, but I also know many people haven’t considered the impact of balance in larger games. I think it’s time that we ALL started looking at the game from all angles, and not just from a set point of view of the games we tend to play in.

First off, it needs to be said that there is *NO* set minimum or maximum number of players that has ever been defined by Flayra. To those who would say that NS is not meant to be played on large servers, I say that you are dead wrong since Flayra has invested a LOT of time fixing the game so that more players could be supported in a single game. (it used to be a server would max out CPU usage at 20 players – and even then it had to be a high-end rig – now larger games are commonplace) He is a busy guy, and I know he has better things to do than to fix the game to allow larger games if that is not how he wanted the game to be played. So we must accept that large games are as much a part of NS as small games.

The fact remains that if Flayra had wanted this game to only be played by a minimum or a maximum number of people, then he would have CODED that into the software so that the game could not be played otherwise. So the argument that “Don’t like it don’t play on small/large servers” is a strawman and DOES NOT APPLY to balance issues. I would ask anyone who replies here to not waste our time with those kinds of ignorant replies.

To those who will accept that NS needs to address ALL game sizes, read on. I’d like to first discuss some concepts and observations.

First off, some NS_classic observations:

While many people dispute the argument that marines lose more often, <b>let’s completely forget about that for a moment </b>and consider the following question…

How often do you see the ALIEN join team door stacked with people waiting to join the game?

If you’re like me, you will likely notice that the MARINE join team door is usually stacked with people waiting to join. Now if the marines are supposedly losing more often, why do you think people want to play as marines instead of aliens? Either the marines don’t lose as much as you think, or there is another reason.

Personally, I think that aliens are no longer fun to play in comparison to the marine team. There are many potential reasons for this, and I’d like to touch on them if I may…

-The alien team has been nerfed repeatedly, and it has reached the point where these nerfs have sucked almost all the fun out of playing alien. I could list the nerfs, but it would be a waste of space since we all know what they are.
-Hive 3 weapons, on the whole, are pretty useless when compared to the inherent value they are supposed to hold. Charge, Acid Rocket, Primal Scream… how many times do you see these skills used in classic games? Even webs and xeno are not used very much in classic.
-Skulks are no match for early game marines. (before fades appear) If you watch the kills on the marine team and compare to the kills on the alien team, you will see that marines repeatedly get MORE kills than aliens do. (again, this is BEFORE the first fade/onos appears – in the important development phase) Furthermore, in any given game, skulks are usually inferior to marines overall. It is the bigger classes that tip the scale significantly in the aliens’ favour, and not the skulks. Yet since most people play the majority of the game as skulk, it becomes less and less fun to play since you die so much and spend too much time sitting in the spawn queue.
-In a one hive game on a large server, the spawn queue becomes an unnecessary annoyance to aliens if they take heavy losses. No one likes sitting in a spawn queue for an extended period of time, and on large servers this is more apparent. This doesn’t affect the marine team to a significant since they can build extra spawn portals.
-It is too easy for the alien team to lose control of one location and/or hive and then feel that the game is lost. Taking back territory in the EARLY game is very difficult once a TF/turrets or phase gate/elec node is dropped.
-Aliens require a high degree of teamwork to survive, let alone have a shot at winning the game. On public servers this level of teamwork usually isn’t there. This runs contrary to the game design which supposedly was to have marines require more teamwork, (and thus need a commander) while aliens were to have a more loosely based ‘intuitive’ style gameplay. The reality is that an alien team without a commander tends to go into disarray, and the alien gameplay experience becomes tiresome and frustrating as people feel that they are unable to accomplish anything because of poor teamwork.

I can list more, but I think we get the message here. While I do play alien often (since I usually join in mid game and the teams are uneven, so I am forced to) I find that it just isn’t as fun as it used to be. Playing marines isn’t that way, just playing aliens.

Fun was sacrificed in the name of balance, a situation that is less than ideal.

However, before we look into this issue, let’s explore the balance issue further.

In order to make the game fun and balanced for games of both small and large sizes, I think we need to re-examine some basic aspects of gameplay.

First off, let’s try and see if we can identify issues that cause imbalance in small vs large games:

Small games: (8 per side or less)

Aliens have an early game disadvantage resulting from their need to have a number of their team go gorge and build resource towers and other chambers. Most skulks roam alone in order to scout the map and provide advance warning. This makes skulks easy pickins to squads of marines, and also makes gorges easy pickins since they usually won’t have backup. The ability of marines to electrify their nodes early on makes it relatively easy to secure a number of nodes that cannot be taken down in the early game. Key locations (like a double node) can easily be taken by marines, and if the aliens fight to deny this, they can often see themselves facing a two hive lockdown or another painful map control situation. However, should the aliens have players who are at all adept at playing fade, they can easily turn the tide and remove most of these nodes as well as launch attacks on marines moving about the map. This puts the marines in a losing situation even before an Onos appears. Should you couple this with a second hive that is up and a lerk providing umbra, this lone fade (or Onos) can often level entire zones/squads. The resource flow also tends to favour aliens in the very small games, although this may or may not be of use if you can’t spend it. Alien losses in the small game usually come from a lack of resource hoarding to evolve to upper level aliens, which is not normally common. The fast resource flow allows aliens to lock down more of the map and thus push marines into a difficult situation, even before upper level aliens arrive.

Large games: (10 per side or more)

Again, aliens face an early game disadvantage from the large number of marines roaming the map. With the need for gorges, this can cause problems for the aliens in securing objectives. However, high levels of teamwork can overcome many obstacles, and so marines may find themselves facing opposition regardless what direction they take. The aliens will often run into problems with the single spawn queue causing long line-ups in a one hive game, and this makes putting up a sustained defence all but impossible without extremely skilled players. Larger games also bring with them resource flow problems for the alien team. Large alien teams need a large number of resource nodes just to get a decent resource flow. Gorges suffer most from poor resource flow, and as a result are unable to put up any kind of decent defence in the hives or at key map points. This makes map control easier for marines, since as long as they can get a marine to a given point, they can establish a presence there and cause no end of trouble for the aliens. While upper level aliens are significant in the small game, they are not nearly as significant in the large game. An Onos may seem like a threat, but it is not nearly as big a threat when you have 10 of your marine buddies with you. The larger games also make it easier for marines to split up into groups and attack multiple objectives, something that is extremely hard for the alien team to do or counter. Marine losses in the large games are normally the result of a poor commander or poor marine team. If the marines have a half-decent commander and marines that will generally follow orders, a win is usually assured. The other consideration is that large squads of marines tend to be more successful in killing aliens simply by the nature of their weapons. The ‘spray’ of gunfire often injures more aliens than is intended, and this makes attacking a large group of marines a risky venture at best.

With the above in mind, we have a few aspects that need to be looked at in greater detail.

First off is resource flow. Each node produces a set amount of resources per tick for whatever team controls it. The problem with this system is the fact that Flayra has said he does not want to change the system to allow a node to produce a different amount of resources based on game factors. His ‘a node is a node regardless of team size’ principle does limit us in this regard. Res for kills was designed to supplement this, but in reality it falls short. While RFK does provide a good income to the entire marine team, (because of the resource pool) it will only significantly impact a small number of alien players. (those who score well) So the larger games (which don’t provide as many marine kills per alien as small games) will provide a lesser benefit from RFK. Aliens don’t need to rely as much on RFK in small games because of the relatively strong resource flow. Alternately, in the larger games, (where there are a good number of repeated alien kills which go into the pool) the marine team will gain a significant resource flow from RFK alone. The aliens, on the other hand, tend to get fewer kills, on top of the slower overall resource flow in these larger games.

Overall one can simplify it as follows:

Smaller games = faster res flow for aliens and greater marine difficultly in countering higher level alien evolutions. The smaller a game gets the greater chance the alien team has to win that game

Larger games = slower res flow for aliens and a lesser marine difficulty in countering higher level alien evolutions. The larger a game gets the greater chance the marine team has to win that game

A possible solution that I think we should examine is a tweak to RFK that would see smaller games give FEWER RFK res than a large game. (this was actually something I proposed a long time ago, and I think we should revisit it)

Games from 00-12 players will get 0 RFK per kill
Games from 13-19 players will get 1 RFK per kill
Games from 20-26 players will get 2 RFK per kill
Games from 27-32 players will get 3 RFK per kill

Another possible breakdown could be:

Games from 00-10 players will get 0 RFK per kill
Games from 11-14 players will get 1 RFK per kill
Games from 15-20 players will get 2 RFK per kill
Games from 21-26 players will get 3 RFK per kill
Games from 27-32 players will get 4 RFK per kill

While the values are arbitrary, the idea is what we should consider. We can change the numbers to whatever we feel is suitable so long as the principle is kept in mind.

With lower RFK values in smaller games, this could help offset the advantage aliens get in small games since they would get significantly less (or no) income from RFK. They would take longer to get higher level evolutions, and this would allow marines a chance to research and upgrade in order to counter these evolutions. The lower res flow would not nearly be as significant a hardship to marines because of their resource pool and the fact they would have more time to tech up.

Alternately, in the large games where alien res flow is poor, the RFK kills would become a crucial income supplement for aliens. While marines would benefit as well, they tend to loose more structures in larger games and so this would likely offset any benefit they might realise. However, if we find marines are getting too much res, we can always tweak the formula a bit.

Next we have the disproportionate strength of various classes. Do NOT fall into the trap of comparing games won with these match-ups. Who wins games now has nothing to do with whether the individual classes are balanced. The base skulk vs base marine match-up is woefully unbalanced in favour of the marines. My opinion on this has not changed.

This can easily be validated by watching the number of kills scored by marines vs the number of kills scored by skulks. The upper class aliens (fade/onos) can cause imbalance vs marines in the mid game in situations where people play in smaller games. So while aliens may win more smaller games, the total kills will often favour the marines because of skulk imbalance. Don’t fall into the trap of calling it balanced because aliens have higher level evolutions, that’s not the point. Playing a game is NOT fun if you are no more than a target dummy for the majority of the game.

If we look back historically on the Onos, it was originally designed to be a ‘game ender’ class. In other words, when the Onos came on the scene, that was it for the marines. Game over. However, at that time the Onos was a hive 3 alien that needed 100 res to evolve to. With the lifting of the hive restriction and the lowering of the cost, the Onos (and to a lesser extent the fade) are now part of the game that much sooner, and they make more of an impact in the smaller games when that happens.

While this did help provide the needed firepower to bust early game lockdowns, it also made it that much more difficult to counter these aliens in smaller games.

I’ve been considering a number of potential concepts in which to address this issue, and what I’ve come up with is something that would tie the relative alien team strength to the number of opponents.

In keeping with the back-story of the ‘hive-mind’ I think that making the alien team’s strength relative to the number of opponents gives us the ability to provide a sliding scale in which to address the balance issue in large and small games.

Basically the concept would be to adjust the armour levels on aliens up/down dependant on how many marines are present. Let’s explore this further:

Each alien has a set amount of armour. In my suggestion we would increase the amount of alien armour (in selected cases) to a point so aliens are balanced in the largest game. That means in a 16v16 game the aliens would have a high level of armour and they would be harder to kill by solo marines. However, in games that have fewer players, that same alien would have LESS armour, making it easier to kill. As can be imagined, the more armour an alien has, the more significantly it would be impacted by this idea.

Here is a baseline formula we can use for consideration

16 players = 100% of armour level
15 players = 95% of armour level
14 players = 90% of armour level
13 players = 85% of armour level
12 players = 75% of armour level
11 players = 60% of armour level
10 players = 50% of armour level
09 players = 40% of armour level
08 players = 30% of armour level
07 players = 25% of armour level
06 players = 20% of armour level
05 players = 15% of armour level
Below 5 players would be 10% armour level

Values are arbitrary and subject to change of course. It’s just to give you an idea of the concept I am proposing. The above would also require another change that I have proposed, and that is decoupling carapace from the D chamber and placing it on the hives. So one hive would equal 1 carapace level. This would make it MUCH easier to balance the armour levels, and give the game greater stability.

Let’s assume we beef the skulk so that it has a base armour of 30 in a 16 player game.

This will mean in a 6v6 game that same skulk will have only 6 armour, while in a larger 10v10 it would have a modest 15 armour. Only in games that exceed 10v10 would the skulk see a significant increase to where it can reach 30 armour. This doesn’t include the effect of carapace, but as one can expect, the benefit would be negligible for those with less than 10 armour. Overall this would mean a tiny buff for the skulk in larger games, but it represents a nerf for higher level aliens.

For the Onos in a 16vs16 game, it could benefit from 600 armour, but this modification would only provide 120 armour in a 6v6 game and 300 in a 10vs10 game. Again, the benefit from carapace only impacts the larger games since that is when the alien would have more armour.

If we take a fade with its full armour 300, then that same fade would only have
60 armour in a 6v6 game and 150 armour in a 10vs10. The fade would see more of a benefit from carapace, although in smaller games the impact would not be as significant. This would make the fade far less of a killing machine in smaller games.

The lerk could really use 100 armour in a 16vs16, but that would only give it 20 armour in a 6vs6 and 50 armour in a 10vs10. The gorge could use more armour in the large games, and a 80 armour gorge in a 16vs16 would only have 16 armour in a 6vs6 and 40 armour in a 10v10.

Calculation of armour would be done when a player spawns. The system would examine the teams. If they are even, then the calculation is straight-forward. If there are more marines, then the alien team would calculate based on marine team members. If there are more aliens, then they would also calculate based on marine numbers, to keep the game fair.

Again, these numbers I am using are strictly arbitrary, but the point is that you CAN balance the game for large and small servers without nerfing the alien team on the whole. (something that annoys me to no end) While this won’t fix all the balance problems in the game, it provides ways we CAN improve balance. Every little bit helps, believe me.

I’d really like to see more fun put in the alien game, and more balance brought to the game overall. While people may say aliens win more often (which is still hotly contested) the bottom line is to ask yourself is it FUN to play aliens...?

If not, then balance means nothing.

Regards,

Savant

Snidely · March 2004

On the subject of fun, I'd like to add that the alien lifeforms need more definate roles. There's nothing wrong with hit and run, but when most of the kharaa (including the onos) need to employ such tactics, it gets stale.

MMZ_Torak · March 2004

It's always a pleasure to read a well thought out post.

Some of the changes you propose are really far off from what the game is. I'm not sure I like the varying armor vs # of players thing, even though I think it is a good idea. Problems occur such as when players leave the server, do your armor levels drop right away? Could be a real hassle to lose a large amount of armor with no warning, especially mid fight.

[slightly OT here, maybe some kind of "vampiric healing" ability could replace Carapace?]

Another problem I see in regard to inadequate defenses on the alien team. Part of the reason is the dreadfully slow rate at which gorges get res. People inclined to "lame up" areas are generally not the people that get 50-75 early enough to lame something up. Most people simply go fade or onos, even without upgrades. I think we need to take a page out of 1.04 and re-examine gorges. An idea that I was toying with was: What if going gorge from a higher evoloution was free, and reverting to your prior lifeform had a minor cost? that way, the people with the res can actually use it for something. Additionally, I think gorges should get more res than other players, but perhaps that res could only be used for building. Should you want to be in a combat role, revert to skulk and the RFK you get from OC's and regular kills should speed your trip to Fadeville. If for some ungodly reason you decide to de-gorge with alot of res, perhaps that res would go back into the pool and evenly distrubted among the team.

Finally, I think that once the hitboxes were fixed, all the marine damage buffs from prior revisions have really borked things. Perhaps re examining the marine damage vs alien armor equation is in order. (I just found it funny that the damage was continuely upped in an effort to compensate for the buggy hitboxes, then the hitboxes were fixed and onos and fades were dying like crepe paper. So the armor values were boosted. Why not just revert damage values and armor values for one build and see what happens?)

Always a pleasure Savant <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

Umbraed_Monkey · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Snidely @ Mar 24 2004, 02:11 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> On the subject of fun, I'd like to add that the alien lifeforms need more definate roles. There's nothing wrong with hit and run, but when most of the kharaa (including the onos) need to employ such tactics, it gets stale.  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
Most? ALL!

Savant, I can imagine what you are going for, but having your numbers adjust according to the OTHER team's size doesnt seem very intuitive. And its hard to time and coordinate things with varying armor. Right now, people can count how many bullets they need to down a skulk. You can argue that we arent supposed to know this, but its useful to judge your chances in an encounter, and act according to it.

That_Annoying_Kid · March 2004

Torak, amen to your post it pretty much sums up what I have to say, and yeah the onos does get tore apart in combat, but I think thats mainly due to the fact that they are so huge and just naturally attract fire

savant that was a very nice post

stooopid · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Savant @ Mar 24 2004, 01:42 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>While many people dispute the argument that marines lose more often, <b>let’s completely forget about that for a moment </b>and consider the following question…

How often do you see the ALIEN join team door stacked with people waiting to join the game?

If you’re like me, you will likely notice that the MARINE join team door is usually stacked with people waiting to join. Now if the marines are supposedly losing more often, why do you think people want to play as marines instead of aliens? Either the marines don’t lose as much as you think, or there is another reason.

Personally, I think that aliens are no longer fun to play in comparison to the marine team. There are many potential reasons for this, and I’d like to touch on them if I may…

-The alien team has been nerfed repeatedly, and it has reached the point where these nerfs have sucked almost all the fun out of playing alien. I could list the nerfs, but it would be a waste of space since we all know what they are.
-Hive 3 weapons, on the whole, are pretty useless when compared to the inherent value they are supposed to hold. Charge, Acid Rocket, Primal Scream… how many times do you see these skills used in classic games? Even webs and xeno are not used very much in classic.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Savant,

Its good to see people addressing fundamental issues like with extensive analysis. I'm still reading your essay and I'm going to update this post as I go with my notes (so prepare for edits until i finish reading)...

As for people joining the marine team, I see the exact same thing you do. But I don't think it has a damn thing to do with any of the listed reasons. Its true that aliens do require a large amount of teamwork to survive, but there is no other personal incentive to do work together. The key to the fun of playing marines is teamwork and command -- following commands and succeeding for the team!

People desire to feel apart of success. When you help the alien team win, its like winning a CS match -- sure you contributed, maybe you even were pivotal, but with marines each player feels pivotal. Psychologically, marine activity is coordinated by a competent overmind, whose actions reinforce the feeling of accomplishment when success is achieved. The best you can hope for doing the same thing as a gorge is someone standing near your DC for a few seconds before going to get a few more kills. There is little tactile gratification in that.

Nerfing can't have anything to do with it because I haven't seen that many versions of NS, and I don't even know about anything being nerfed, so how can that affect my calculus when I chose a team?

Hive3 weapons to weak? Ummm... more often than not, Xeno RAPES the marines in their spawn point at the end of the round. And still, I have little desire to emulate that suicide bombing behavior when I chose a team.

Spawn queue? Never noticed it. It doesn't seem slower than a 2 IP marine spawn rate... but maybe it is... I never noticed it.

To Be Continued...

Kwil · March 2004

Though your ideas for addressing individual alien strength with respect to game size are interesting, they do nothing to address the other issue you bring up of the aliens requiring teamwork and not having the tools to really do so.

If I remember correctly, NS was supposed to be a team game on both sides. The difference being that the marines had a single organizer and the aliens would organize themselves.

I'm still in favor of improving hive-sight and drastically improving the minimaps to provide the aliens more opportunity for proper team-work. I also think teamwork could be promoted by providing aliens some way to transfer res between themselves. This opens up some alternatives alien strategies such as concentrating it all in one alien to tech up more quickly -- a large risk because it leaves the rest of the group weaker for longer. Finally, more in-game communication between aliens.. by use of either new sounds, or maybe other ideas, such as an alien turning on his flashlight changes color in the view of other aliens.. this could be a good indicator for "follow me" or something like that.

Of course, there's nothing to say that both of these things can't happen. Your suggestions might be worthwhile to explore because of the known balance changes that happen between larger and smaller games. However, I think along side of those, we also need changes that enhance the ability of aliens to team-play inuitively.

Forlorn · March 2004

I think changes to armor values on teamsizes isn't intuitive at all and very confusing to new **and** experienced players alike. There are far too many problems with changing armor values to make it worthwhile.

Next, just about everything you sad has already been said in one way or another, but I guess it's nice to have it all in one place.

Also, changing RFK depending on teamsizes isn't such a bad idea, and that's definatly worth considering.

Still, I'm glad you recognize that most if not all of the imbalances on NS are not created by the type of player (clanner, pubber) but by the teamsizes.

I still think that the most effective way to balance out the sides is to change the cost of universal marine upgrades.

As <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=41573&hl=' target='_blank'>I have posted before</a>, I suppose putting it here for discussion's sake won't hurt:

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Lets say, for arguments sake, the most balanced size of an NS game is 6v6. This is clan standard.

Now the arms lab currently (as of 2.01b) is 20/30/40. This is all fine and dandy.

Lets say the game is now 12v12. Arms lab is still 20/30/40. Anyone here see the imbalance? It?s not hard to spot out.

On larger games(8v8 or more), the arms lab is more than worth it?s cost. You upgrade all of your marines for a fraction of the cost of what buying them all equipment would be, and it?s much more effective as there are more guns that get the upgrades. In smaller games(4v4 or less), the arms lab is crap compared to outfitting your 3-4 marines with some good equipment. Arms lab will still be important in small games, however, it comes second to equipment. And the opposite is true in large games.

The Arms Lab, believe it or not, is what causes a lot of unbalancing on large and small games right now, it?s either too good or too bad. On large games, you see stalemates quite often because aliens can?t hope to compete with marines that come out of spawn that shred them to pieces easily, even with an LMG, as there is such a high volume of it all. That is why large games almost never end early, as marines get their arms lab upgrades for too good of a cost, and they get them all very quickly, resulting in marines that generally cannot do well on attack, but pretty much own on defense, forcing aliens to get their third hive for some uber powerful abilities (or if the aliens chose sensory first so they can get Def or Move chambers).

So, the fix for the arms lab is to make it proportional to the amount of marines playing.

For 6 marines, the cost is 20/30/40.

For 12 marines, you have double the marines, and thus, the upgrades should cost 40/60/80.

For 3 marines, you have half the marines, and thus, the upgrades should cost 10/15/20.

However, just by looking at the numbers presented here I?m sure all the commanders must be dropping their Jaw?s onto the floor screaming: ?NO WAY! 40 res for the first set of upgrades? TOO MUCH!? Or? ?10 res on a 3 man server? It?s practically free ffs!? And, for the most part, they are right.

So, a small modification to the above said proposal: Only add/subtract 50% additional cost for every 100% increase/decrease in marines.

12 marines: 30/45/60
3 marines: 15/23/30

This is a formula that needs to be calculated, one that figures out the cost of the arms labs upgrades based on how many marines there are.

An easy way to calculate the costs of these upgrades if you are without a calculator is:

For every 3 marines lost/gained over 6, add/subtract 5 res for the first upgrade, add/subtract 7 res for the second upgrade, and add/subtract 10 res for the third upgrade.

Very simple, and this would balance out the arms lab completely, no matter the teamsize.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

rockst4r · March 2004

considering aliens are not fun to play:
imho you are right. skulks are inferior to the normal marine. additionally marines tend to move in groups, skulk usually not becuause they have gorges building/waiting for res or just some skulks lurking for prey in a dark corner. mostly a skulk dies far more often than a careful marine. that maybe be countered by removing rfk, but there is something more serious to be taken care of. aliens saving res in publics which rush the big evolutions early on. most of the team will gorge at the start and build an rt. one gorge will build dcs. and then there are the res ****. they either win or loose the game all alone. when an onos totally cripples the marine team at hive one. what have you done as a hive 1 skulk? you have build an rt and died several times coz you are mostly forced to hide and be passive. then there is this onos and wins the game. was it fun to build a rt and some dcs? certainly not, because its the third time in a row that your farthest evolution was a hive 2 skulk with 3 dcs. how often do you get to see 3 hives which would lead to more variety? how often is a game over with only a bunch of dcs and hive 2 just finishing?

the life of a skulk is mostly very painful and not attractive... not enough chamber variety and only two hives max.

your alien armor suggestion seems to make sense, but its a little bit too complicated to let it lose on the public. though it would be a step in the right direction.

Luminair · March 2004

Just to answer your last question: ask yourself is it FUN to play aliens...?

In Combat at least, yes. I find aliens much more fun to play than marines, because the aliens are a very original and varied group of classes, meanwhile the marines are just some standard dudes with guns, hardly anything different from any other game.

Mintman · March 2004

But it is nowhere near as much fun to play as aliens now than as it used to be. When I work out exactly why that is I'll let you know, but to be honest I really can figure it out at this point in time.

Zek · March 2004

Savant, you never expanded on the Alien teamwork issue, which I think is one of the most significant barriers to balance as well as the fun of the team. A well played marine team just has a good teamwork feel that really makes it enjoyable even if marines lose; aliens usually lack that and if you win you often just get the feeling that you out-deathmatched them(of course sometimes you have really exceptional alien teams, but it's the exception and not the rule).

I think we need to be addressing ways to make the Alien gameplay and teamwork much more intuitive, as it was supposed to be. The marine team is organized by communication and a central commander, and the alien team is supposed to organized by gut instinct(hive sight, the HUD, etc) where things just sort of naturally fall together. Currently hivesight is <i>extremely</i> limited in use; it doesn't even show hives anymore, much less information that would contribute to teamwork. In my eyes, we'll know aliens are in good shape when you can have a good, reasonably organized game without actually having to talk to your teammates very much(obviously not ideal, but it should work out).

The best place to start, IMHO, is a reworking of hivesight, the minimap, the emotes and the HUD. Some suggestions off the top of my head:

-Return hives to the hivesight. This is a no brainer. Also do something about the apparent maximum range of seeing icons(I don't know if this is a bug; if you look at the edge of your screen you can see hivesight icons significantly further away than otherwise).
-Implement a new parasite color for structures. I have a sprite for this <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=65340&st=0' target='_blank'>here</a> if you're curious.
-Bring back the ability to see marines that your teammates are seeing on everybody else's hive-sight(as parasites, was this way in 1.04. Maybe SoF icons instead?). Perhaps also allow them to linger for a couple seconds when the marine goes out of view or the alien dies. This way aliens have a good chance of finding out about marine movement when their teammates see it rather than having to wait to be told.

-Put all parasited marines on the minimap, same as MT for marines.
-If possible, recolor the minimaps so vents are more clearly shown. That's what really matters, not the elevation of the map(which I believe is how it works now).
-Add a new icon that appears on the minimap in an area where an alien or structure has been under attack recently; a hotspot, if you will. I'm thinking a transparent red/yellow explosion-looking sprite a couple times bigger than the current sprites, so that aliens can immediately notice where these areas are.

-Bring back the menu emotes, with significant improvements in functionality. Emotes should show up on the HUD similar to how building notifications do(just a species icon with the text of the emote and the area next to it), as well as on the hivesight, without having to hold the mouse over the icon(can't remember if you had to do that in 1.04).
-Examples: "Building Here - Station Access Alpha" "Marines Incoming - Mother Interface" "Need Backup - Marine Spawn"
-Possibly a sub-sub-tree which allows players to say what they're saving for; namely a hive, upgrade chambers or a species
-A "Heal Me" emote, the same sound that currently exists, but rather than showing up on the HUD it displays an icon over the alien's head(similar to the "Weld Me" idea often suggested for marines)
-New "building" icons which instead tell the team what an alien is evolving into and where

Cxwf · March 2004

I wish I could add something more constructive to this debate, but the truth is I find 3.0 has taken so much fun out of playing Aliens that I just go play 2.1 instead, and so I don't have enough experience with 3.0 to point to exact causes.

Kwil · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Mar 24 2004, 04:04 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I think changes to armor values on teamsizes isn't intuitive at all and very confusing to new **and** experienced players alike. There are far too many problems with changing armor values to make it worthwhile.
</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Just curious, what are the problems you see with this?

I don't think confusion is really a problem, as that would tend to fall under the "adapt or die" clause.

And in fact, though his description wasn't quite clear, it seemed to me pretty obvious that the alien's armor would be recalculated on every spawn or gestation, based simply on the size of the marine team at that point.

As to your other idea, I used to be against the change the armory cost as the game got bigger idea, but looking at it more, it's also a reasonable solution.

What strikes me as an easier way to do it though, is simply to make it so that every time a marine spawns *including game start* it costs a resource from the marine team. This has the added benefit of making marine lives really precious to the commander.

Thus, the bigger the group, the fewer resources they start with, the longer it takes to tech-up. Plus this nicely handles the marine's "end-game-turtle" tactic that always seems to take forever for aliens to break through.

edit: Oh.. and a big fat "Me too!" to Zek's post.

Forlorn · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kwil @ Mar 24 2004, 07:11 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Mar 24 2004, 04:04 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I think changes to armor values on teamsizes isn't intuitive at all and very confusing to new **and** experienced players alike. There are far too many problems with changing armor values to make it worthwhile.
</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Just curious, what are the problems you see with this?  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
- People drop to the RR when a fade charges or onos charges against lots of HA (say, 4 of them, an LA drops out who was building something)

- If it doesn't change your health and armor dynamically, then lets say a marine or 3 exit the game... now you have an entire team of overpowered aliens destroying us due to buffed armor values

This is only to name a few.

Kwil · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Mar 24 2004, 07:23 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> - People drop to the RR when a fade charges or onos charges against lots of HA (say, 4 of them, an LA drops out who was building something)

- If it doesn't change your health and armor dynamically, then lets say a marine or 3 exit the game... now you have an entire team of overpowered aliens destroying us due to buffed armor values
 </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
I don't think it's intended that it change with every team-size change, only on spawn or gestation. I'd agree that'd be too open to abuse otherwise. (On both sides.. "Hey, the onos is about to hit them.. all skulks join the marine team for a moment..")

Now the problem of a bunch of marines dropping from the game leaving buffed aliens is really only an exaggeration of what happens now when 3 marines leave the team.. either way they're probably pretty screwed. If the armor levels moved up on a smooth enough scale though, I doubt the loss of one marine would dramatically alter the game, and any alien that died would thereafter reflect the new armor value.

That would also be a problem on the flip side when a marine joins.. now the aliens would be somewhat underpowered. That would fix itself though as soon as they got killed.

However, the same type of problems with mid-game team changes apply to your solution as well but worse. Just before marines are ready to upgrade the armory, the commander tells a bunch of them to hit the RR, upgrades the armory for cheap, and then brings them back in.

Unlike with Savant's idea, since armory upgrades are permanent, this imbalance has a much more lasting effect on the game -- an extra shotgun or two can make a heck of a lot of difference, especially because smart marines can keep it in play even after they die.

Umbraed_Monkey · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Mar 24 2004, 08:23 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kwil @ Mar 24 2004, 07:11 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Mar 24 2004, 04:04 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I think changes to armor values on teamsizes isn't intuitive at all and very confusing to new **and** experienced players alike. There are far too many problems with changing armor values to make it worthwhile.
</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Just curious, what are the problems you see with this? </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
- People drop to the RR when a fade charges or onos charges against lots of HA (say, 4 of them, an LA drops out who was building something)

- If it doesn't change your health and armor dynamically, then lets say a marine or 3 exit the game... now you have an entire team of overpowered aliens destroying us due to buffed armor values

This is only to name a few. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
What about your armslab suggestion?

comm: k guys, Im going to get armor upgrades, do your thing
marines: roger that.
*marine1 F4's*
*marine2 F4's*
*marine3 F4's*
*marine4 F4's*
*marine5 F4's*
*marine6 F4's*
*marine7 F4's*
*comm upgrades armor for a smooth <low res cost>*
*marine1 comes back*
*marine2 comes back*
*marine3 comes back*
*marine4 comes back*
*marine5 comes back*
*marine6 comes back*
*marine7 comes back*

edit: damn you Kwil <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' />

Demented · March 2004

The hivesight falls woefully short of its intended purpose. Something definitely has to be done. Could someone explain WHY hivesight was reduced to its current state. Its not something I think anyone in the right state of mind would do.

(BTW the message board on the upper left corner of the screen could be used to warn the aliens whenever a lifeform comes under attack. Additionally, an "active resource nodes" message for the aliens would be most useful IMO)

Savant, what about changing the effectiveness of the armour (i.e how much it absorbs) instead of its numerical value? This should fix some problems about armour suddenly dropping in the middle of a fight.

Forlorn, good point. What about stopping any more changes in armour values after the five-minute mark? The would stop two oni from suddenly becoming overpowering rhinos of doom halfway through the game.

Demented · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Umbraed Monkey @ Mar 24 2004, 09:34 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Mar 24 2004, 08:23 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kwil @ Mar 24 2004, 07:11 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Mar 24 2004, 04:04 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I think changes to armor values on teamsizes isn't intuitive at all and very confusing to new **and** experienced players alike. There are far too many problems with changing armor values to make it worthwhile.
</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Just curious, what are the problems you see with this? </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
- People drop to the RR when a fade charges or onos charges against lots of HA (say, 4 of them, an LA drops out who was building something)

- If it doesn't change your health and armor dynamically, then lets say a marine or 3 exit the game... now you have an entire team of overpowered aliens destroying us due to buffed armor values

This is only to name a few. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
What about your armslab suggestion?

comm: k guys, Im going to get armor upgrades, do your thing
marines: roger that.
*marine1 F4's*
*marine2 F4's*
*marine3 F4's*
*marine4 F4's*
*marine5 F4's*
*marine6 F4's*
*marine7 F4's*
*comm upgrades armor for a smooth <low res cost>*
*marine1 comes back*
*marine2 comes back*
*marine3 comes back*
*marine4 comes back*
*marine5 comes back*
*marine6 comes back*
*marine7 comes back*

edit: damn you Kwil <img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
What if the total number of players on the server determined armslab upgrades?This includes people in the readyroom as well as the alien team. We assume both sides have an equal number of players. The marine cost is determined by dividing the number of players total by two.

Umbraed_Monkey · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Demented @ Mar 24 2004, 09:42 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> We assume both sides have an equal number of players. The marine cost is determined by dividing the number of players total by two.  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
From the looks of the games these days, you are assuming too much <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' />

<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' />

Savant · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Torak)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Problems occur such as when players leave the server, do your armor levels drop right away? Could be a real hassle to lose a large amount of armor with no warning, especially mid fight.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>As I noted in my suggestion, the calculation would be done when a player spawned. So you would not lose armour in mid battle.

I think you need to remember that my suggestions are not meant to be a be-all or end-all to balance issues. It's just one aspect of a very big equation.

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Umbraed Monkey)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Savant, I can imagine what you are going for, but having your numbers adjust according to the OTHER team's size doesnt seem very intuitive.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>Actually it is the only way to do it so it can't be exploited. If you tie it to the alien team size, then if the teams became imbalanced in the aliens favour the marines would get creamed. However, I'm not all that concerned on what team you tie it to. If this is an issue we could tie it to an average of BOTH teams' size. Fair enough?

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kwil)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Though your ideas for addressing individual alien strength with respect to game size are interesting, they do nothing to address the other issue you bring up of the aliens requiring teamwork and not having the tools to really do so.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>My suggestions aren't meant to solve all the balance problems. People need to start thinking for lots of small changes instead of a couple big ones. Smaller changes make the game easier to balance. My suggestions are meant to only address one aspect of balance.

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>I think changes to armor values on teamsizes isn't intuitive at all and very confusing to new **and** experienced players alike. There are far too many problems with changing armor values to make it worthwhile.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>I disagree. It's actually a very simple system. The bigger the team, the higher the armour levels of aliens. The smaller the teams, the smaller the alien armour levels.

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>- If it doesn't change your health and armor dynamically, then lets say a marine or 3 exit the game... now you have an entire team of overpowered aliens destroying us due to buffed armor values</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>That will happen ANYWAY since the teams are unbalanced. If you have a 10vs10 and 3 marines leave, what would you rather have, an onos with 600 armor or an onos with 300 armour? Even though there are only 7 marines left, the marines are still screwed anyway regardless of this armour system. However, the armour level would still be lower than if we didn't have this system.

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Zek)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>I think we need to be addressing ways to make the Alien gameplay and teamwork much more intuitive, as it was supposed to be.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. I'd love to make the aliens work better as a team. However, those issues are not what I am trying to address here. There are loads of things I would like to see done to aliens, but my thread is meant to deal with a specific balance issue. There is no reason we can't also address the issues you raise as well. It doesn't have to be either/or.

I just want to remind people that this ISN'T a cure-all to balance. It's just one small suggestion in the big picture. Try not to take it out of its intended context.

Regards,

Savant

Forlorn · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Umbraed Monkey @ Mar 24 2004, 09:34 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Mar 24 2004, 08:23 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kwil @ Mar 24 2004, 07:11 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Mar 24 2004, 04:04 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I think changes to armor values on teamsizes isn't intuitive at all and very confusing to new **and** experienced players alike. There are far too many problems with changing armor values to make it worthwhile.
</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Just curious, what are the problems you see with this? </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
- People drop to the RR when a fade charges or onos charges against lots of HA (say, 4 of them, an LA drops out who was building something)

- If it doesn't change your health and armor dynamically, then lets say a marine or 3 exit the game... now you have an entire team of overpowered aliens destroying us due to buffed armor values

This is only to name a few. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
What about your armslab suggestion?

comm: k guys, Im going to get armor upgrades, do your thing
marines: roger that.
*marine1 F4's*
*marine2 F4's*
*marine3 F4's*
*marine4 F4's*
*marine5 F4's*
*marine6 F4's*
*marine7 F4's*
*comm upgrades armor for a smooth <low res cost>*
*marine1 comes back*
*marine2 comes back*
*marine3 comes back*
*marine4 comes back*
*marine5 comes back*
*marine6 comes back*
*marine7 comes back*

edit: damn you Kwil <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' />  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
See, that's the difference though...

Savant's idea is easily abusable, mine is not.

If a guy f4's then he loses all of his equipment, his position, and has to respawn in again, major issues for the marines.

Also, all you have to do is make it so that whenever the marine team's size changes, then the universal upgrades change costs accordingly but over a time basis, say like 1 res per 5 seconds. This way it would not be advantagous to abuse it.

The biggest problem with Savant's idea, is not that players can abuse it, but that it gives direct nerfs and bonus's depending on how many people join. Changing the res of upgrades will NOT effect combat effectiveness.

Changing combat effectiveness is horribly flawed and by doing that you will never achieve balance.

BugBrain · March 2004

If you are gonna add much more stuff to hivesight, which I agree with, then it needs an option to be turned off. Too much stuff could clutter a skulks view and make it harder to kill dancing rines.

Add on: I think I get what forlorn is saying. Picture balancing as a goal at the top of a hill. The goal in this case is rine upgrades. The hill is the res cost and time it takes to get them. Instead of directly cheapening the goal, he is suggesting steepening the hill depending on rine size.

Fieari · March 2004

Remember the old Advanced Hivesight thing? What if that were brought back, as a default for all aliens. When you turn the flashlight on, all living things glow, including marines. However, hivesight turns off... so you could have hivesight or make marines glow, but not both. That would add a way to turn hivesight off, and remove the marine's in a dark room advantage (which I believe he should never have had) all at the same time.

Kwil · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Mar 24 2004, 10:26 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
See, that's the difference though...

Savant's idea is easily abusable, mine is not.

If a guy f4's then he loses all of his equipment, his position, and has to respawn in again, major issues for the marines.

Also, all you have to do is make it so that whenever the marine team's size changes, then the universal upgrades change costs accordingly but over a time basis, say like 1 res per 5 seconds. This way it would not be advantagous to abuse it.

The biggest problem with Savant's idea, is not that players can abuse it, but that it gives direct nerfs and bonus's depending on how many people join. Changing the res of upgrades will NOT effect combat effectiveness.

Changing combat effectiveness is horribly flawed and by doing that you will never achieve balance.  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
I don't see the difference.

In fact, looking at this more, the suggestion gets worse and worse when you take into account games where people join and leave as the game goes on.

If the game starts and there are lots of marine players, it's very expensive. If a number of them start to leave then the marine team is screwed, even if a couple aliens switch over. They'd still be screwed because their armslab cost is dropping slowly.

Conversely, if the game starts and there are only a few players, then the upgrades are very cheap. Then as more people come into the game, the cost starts to creep up. The thing is, once the upgrade is purchased, it's purchased, and any marine that comes in after that point gets to take advantage of it, regardless of what price it was purchased at. So when you get (as happens on many servers) games that get notably bigger after the first minute or so, you're going to have marines getting upgrades at the same price as normal, if not cheaper.

In fact, this seems very easily abused by marines. They just don't jump in the game right away. After all, the cost has to start somewhere.

So far as I'm concerned, Savant's idea, by being able to change throughout the game, not just before the upgrades are purchased, is actually a better one to address balance issues through-out the entire game. (As a side note, my own idea of having it cost res to spawn marines I can see is not a good one.. way too easy to abuse)

Why is changing combat effectiveness horribly flawed in and of itself? After all, it could be argued that what is horribly flawed is allowing team sizes to change.

Ph0enix · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kwil @ Mar 25 2004, 07:31 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Why is changing combat effectiveness horribly flawed in and of itself? After all, it could be argued that what is horribly flawed is allowing team sizes to change.  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
Combat effectiveness changing on the fly is bad. It's difficult enough ATM explaining to newbies how armour becomes more effective with more hives, at least the armour value doesn't change. Also its an unobtrusive mechanic which does it's job and new players may not even realise until told.

Explaining why armour values themselves keeps changing mid-game however is goin to be a pain in the neck. People learn from previous experiences.

If a fade player beats up on 3 marines when its 10 vs. 10, hes goin to expect, everything being equal, to do the same in a 5 vs. 5. I just think its too difficult for newbies to cope with.

On the other hand, I like the RFK changing with team size. It's unobtrusive, doesn't interfere with anything and does its job of balancing 'silently' so to speak.

Savant · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Combat effectiveness changing on the fly is bad. It's difficult enough ATM explaining to newbies how armour becomes more effective with more hives, at least the armour value doesn't change. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>I really don't see the concern here. The game is already difficult for 'new players' to understand, this isn't going to make it any worse.

New players will come to understand it over time. The point is that the game will have better balance. Instead of a single fade owning the marine team repeatedly, the marine team will have a chance to kill it.

Try explaining to a 'new player' why they keep getting owned by a fade and losing the game. They'll have a heck of a time figuring out why that is in the game.

The point of this sugestion is simple. You CAN'T have an uber alien that is unkillable by a squad comprised of EVERY marine on the team. It's not balanced.

Alternately, you can't nerf aliens and make it so that this 'uber alien' can be killed by a small number of marines. If you do then it won't have a chance in large games. The only other option to get around this is to seriously nerf the cost and combat effectiveness of that alien. However, if you do THAT then you create a whole new set of problems. (which I won't get into)

There are many things in this game that aren't easy to understand, but most people manage. I think it's shortsighted to avoid a balance change solely because of concerns that new players might not understand it right away. They can adapt.

Regards,

Savant

Umbraed_Monkey · March 2004

Although we(I) may disagree to your solution to this, but I cannot agree more on how large a problem this is. The RFK changes would be a good first step (unless it was outright taken out...noone seems to be able to justify its existance). What you suggest there is probably the only good way of doing RFK.

How about we adjust Spawn-Rates instead of armor to balance things? The good thing about adjusting spawn rates is, no matter how you play with it, its remains completely transparent to the player. My biggest problem with the dynamic adjusting of armor is that ts no longer predictable how much pain your opponent is going to withstand. A large part of RTS's is knowing what your chances of winning a certain battle, and depending on that, you either run, fight, or get reinforcements. Varying amounts of armor will make this hard to predict.

Try and give it a thought, adjust spawn rates to balance the games. Small teams spawn faster, big teams slower. Or perhaps a few of these dynamic balance adjustments will be needed at the same time.

edit: on second thought, varying spawnrates will conflict with RFK. So that may cause a problem. But then again, RFK isnt exactly integral to the game.

Forlorn · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kwil @ Mar 25 2004, 02:31 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>In fact, looking at this more, the suggestion gets worse and worse when you take into account games where people join and leave as the game goes on.

If the game starts and there are lots of marine players, it's very expensive. If a number of them start to leave then the marine team is screwed, even if a couple aliens switch over. They'd still be screwed because their armslab cost is dropping slowly.

Conversely, if the game starts and there are only a few players, then the upgrades are very cheap. Then as more people come into the game, the cost starts to creep up. The thing is, once the upgrade is purchased, it's purchased, and any marine that comes in after that point gets to take advantage of it, regardless of what price it was purchased at. So when you get (as happens on many servers) games that get notably bigger after the first minute or so, you're going to have marines getting upgrades at the same price as normal, if not cheaper.

In fact, this seems very easily abused by marines. They just don't jump in the game right away. After all, the cost has to start somewhere. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Kwil, you make no sense. What you just described of the flaws of my system are exactly the same flaws with the alien res system.

My system makes the marine upgrades <b>dyanamic</b>, in order to compensate for a <b>dynamic</b> alien res sytem.

Alien's res system changes in terms of speed as people leave and enter the game.

It wouldn't be that bad if it happened to marine's as well.

Lets take a closer look at your 'points':

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>If the game starts and there are lots of marine players, it's very expensive. If a number of them start to leave then the marine team is screwed, even if a couple aliens switch over. They'd still be screwed because their armslab cost is dropping slowly.
</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

Horrible example. If at any point, in any game, players start to drop from one team then they are screwed no matter what. Being a man or three down WILL put you at a huge disadvantage regardless.

Also, if aliens' lose players, they lose someone who had already acumulated a lot of res, unless they went gorge and spent it. In which case, it wouldn't hurt the aliens if the players who leave were the gorges, yet, if the marines who leave the game have already killed a lot of aliens and destroyed a lot of infastracture, then you can say those marines payed themselves off in res for kills as well as made use of their upgrades.

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Conversely, if the game starts and there are only a few players, then the upgrades are very cheap. Then as more people come into the game, the cost starts to creep up. The thing is, once the upgrade is purchased, it's purchased, and any marine that comes in after that point gets to take advantage of it, regardless of what price it was purchased at. So when you get (as happens on many servers) games that get notably bigger after the first minute or so, you're going to have marines getting upgrades at the same price as normal, if not cheaper.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

How often do you see a pub game where teamsizes increase from 6 v 6 to 12 v 12 over a short period of time? Because that's practically the only way you could take advantage of this system.

Otherwise, if it's just one player or two who joins... then the cost of universal upgrades go up 1-3 res. Woo. Big save there marines!

Also, look at my scale rate. 1 res every 5 seconds. Sound's familar? It should. This is about the same rate at which marine's and alien's receive their res. So really, you may be able to make off with one or two cheap upgrades at the start of the game, but because it will change so fast (and yet slow enough not to be abused) that it's the only 'steal' the marine's will get out of this. Really, it's nothing.

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>In fact, this seems very easily abused by marines. They just don't jump in the game right away. After all, the cost has to start somewhere. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

If marine's don't jump into the game then both teams will stay very small and people will get bored just sitting in the RR. Another horrible point. And the cost does start somewhere, at 10 res for lv. 1 armor in a 1v1. Meanwhile, with only one alien he will get 16 res per minute on one node. Another steal by the marine's...! oh, wait a minute...

Okay, finally, back to Savant's armor changing with teamsize idea:

Realistically, people are not going to come in and out of the game to abuse how much armor the aliens start with.

That said, the reason why you shouldn't adjust armor values to compensate for the ability for mass marines to focus fire and therefore wipe out your team with ease is actually pretty complex.

I'm sure we all know of the game Starcraft.

One marine costs 50 minerals, and two zerglings cost 50 res. Zerglings win in a straight up fight in the early game.

But, lets do some tests.

Increase it to 10 marines versus 20 zerglings. Zerglings still win, but will barely pull it off. Increase it to 20 marines versus 40 zerglings, and marines win.

Keep increasing the marines, and they will increasingly slaughter the zerglings.

Why is this? It is because of map deisgn and chokepoints. The zerglings, in order to take down the marines, have to be able to:

a.) Run up to them
b.) Start attacking within less than a second of entering the marine's attack range

But with large amounts of marines, the map becomes clogged. With 20 marines, on a typical SC map only 10 of those marines will be able to be attacked at any given time. Meanwhile, all 20 marines will slaughter the zerglings.

However, it is interesting to note that 100 marines lose to 200 zerglings IF the map they play on allows it so that the marines are thin and spread out, say in a long straight line.

This same sort of principle applies in NS, where that with increasingly large numbers of marines, the focus fire element of marines becomes too much as aliens have less avenue's of attack on the marines themselves.

I think, what actually needs to be done, rather than adjust armor values, is that maps should be specifically designed with a number of players in mind.

Changing armor values to compensate for marine's clogging up on small maps and slaughtering aliens adresses a symptom, and not the disease.

The actual problem is that marines become almost exponentially stronger with more marines in any given cramped room.

However, skulks can still compete with marines nice and dandy providng the amount of marine's in any given one room does not exceed 5 or 6. Fighting off 10+ marines in an area is way too much for aliens to handle.

If armor values are changed so that aliens can fight large amounts of marines, what happens when a clever comm wants to split up his marines? Will he be able to?

NOPE, because you have super powerful skulks that are designed to work against larger groups of marines. Even the best shots will have trouble killing the noobiest skulk because the skulk takes close to 20 bullets on a 32 player server.

And on the other hand, lets say we have good skulks, one's who can bhop, who ambush at will, now these guys will have a feild day. Along with good fades an onos, as they will be tanks and freaks of nature.

Savant · March 2004

Forlorn, read my message again and READ it closely this time. It was only the skulk I gave a tiny armor beef to. 70/30 in a 16v16 game since there is so much spray that they need the extra armour to remain competitive. In a 6v6 the skulk would have LESS armour than they do now.

The other aliens would keep the same armour, BUT would only have 100% of their armour in a 16v16 game.

So the onos would only have its 600 armour in a 16vs16 game. I never suggested to give the onos MORE armour. In a game of less then 16vs16 the onos would only be weaker than it is right now. It would NOT be any harder to kill.

Same for the fade. Stick with its 300 armour for 16v16 and reduce the fade armour as the game size diminishes. How does that make them "tanks and freaks of nature" You're not making any sense here.

It sounds like you are just trying to make up excuses because you don't like the idea. If you don't like it, that's cool. However, don't trying and make up imaginary reasons for your dislike of it. An onos or fade would only have the potential to be weaker in smaller games, NOT stronger. So that blows your objections right out of the water.

Regards,

Savant

Forlorn · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Savant @ Mar 25 2004, 12:23 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Forlorn, read my message again and READ it closely this time. It was only the skulk I gave a tiny armor beef to. 70/30 in a 16v16 game since there is so much spray that they need the extra armour to remain competitive. In a 6v6 the skulk would have LESS armour than they do now.

The other aliens would keep the same armour, BUT would only have 100% of their armour in a 16v16 game.

So the onos would only have its 600 armour in a 16vs16 game. I never suggested to give the onos MORE armour. In a game of less then 16vs16 the onos would only be weaker than it is right now. It would NOT be any harder to kill.

It sounds like you are just trying to make up excuses because you don't like the idea. If you don't like it, that's cool. However, don't trying and make up imaginary reasons for your dislike of it. An onos or fade would only have the potential to be weaker in smaller games, NOT stronger. So that blows your objections right out of the water.

Regards,

Savant  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
You need to read, not me, thank you very much.

Had you read closer, you would realize that the reason you claim skulks need a boost is because of the large game advantage marines receive with a lot of players.

I made the analogy to to starcraft, between Zerglings and Marines. I also pointed out that the marines would lose in Starcraft, even with large numbers, providing the map was open enough.

So again, your point of skulks needing more armor for large games;

silly point that only adresses the symptoms of this problem.

If the maps are larger, and more difficult to control, then larger players can easily play as marines will be forced to spread out and therefore lower the combat scenerio's to packs of 2-4 marines on the map at any one time, not 5-8.

If marines do stay in packs of 5-8, then they will forfiet res control and most likely lose the game against competant aliens.

Therefore, the best solution of marine vs. skulk imbalance is not to change the game but the maps.

Everything I just said right now was a rehash of my last post. Dear lord please read and respond next time.

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Same for the fade. Stick with its 300 armour for 16v16 and reduce the fade armour as the game size diminishes. How does that make them "tanks and freaks of nature" You're not making any sense here.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

I did not understand that, because it would not make anymore sense to me to nerf the fade/onos. Making them any weaker would make them cannon fodder, esp. on smaller games versus HMG's. I thought it was a mistake or whatever but now that you say those are indeed how the numbers work, I must say the idea sounds worse than ever.

An Essay On Balance Issues…

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