Also, Radagast, for those of us not in the "know", I'd appreciate backing up a topic with words. These words don't necessarily have to be true, or even comprehendable, but anything better explains what passive regen is than nothing.
<!--QuoteBegin-JNighthawk+Oct 6 2004, 12:07 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (JNighthawk @ Oct 6 2004, 12:07 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Also, Radagast, for those of us not in the "know", I'd appreciate backing up a topic with words. These words don't necessarily have to be true, or even comprehendable, but anything better explains what passive regen is than nothing. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Nadagast* <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Passive regen is the only way you're gonna stop DC dominance... regeneration is just too good. It needs to be replaced and regen needs to be passive, and the chambers would have to be rebalanced but it would let people choose what chamber they want.
<!--QuoteBegin-Nadagast+Oct 6 2004, 05:37 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Nadagast @ Oct 6 2004, 05:37 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-JNighthawk+Oct 6 2004, 12:07 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (JNighthawk @ Oct 6 2004, 12:07 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Also, Radagast, for those of us not in the "know", I'd appreciate backing up a topic with words. These words don't necessarily have to be true, or even comprehendable, but anything better explains what passive regen is than nothing. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Nadagast* <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Passive regen is the only way you're gonna stop DC dominance... regeneration is just too good. It needs to be replaced and regen needs to be passive, and the chambers would have to be rebalanced but it would let people choose what chamber they want. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I strongly support this. however, it will not be enough to eliminate regen as best upgrade. If you just do so, another chamber will take the DCs place as first chamber. OR people will just take cara and be happy with their passive regeneration...
Unchaining is the only way to prevent any kind of "best" first chamber for teh win!!11!.
To answer the initial posters question:
The reason we want this to be implemented and not be dependent on a plugin, is proper balancing.
Right now, unchained chambers pretty much balance themselves due to rescost and alien res shortage in early game.
However, the developers are going to tweak the resincome for aliens sooner or later. So if the early game resshortage is tweaked and the alien progression is balanced for chained servers, it is going to be overpowering for unchained servers, simply because gorges will most certainly be able to build more chambers in shorter amount of time.
This actually could unbalance the unchained plugin. To make this balanced for further builds, and not just another cool plugin like lerklift, it needs to be officially implemented, tested and balanced.
Something I don't get, although I might have missed the whole point. Unchained chambers or not, in 6v6 clanwars, people will still dedicate one person to build chambers (because they need 2 RT 2 fades and 1 hive, most of the time), and this will be DC again. Once they have enough ress they'll build MCs, but not as much earlier as when you build MCs once your 2nd hive is up. Sure, it opens a lot of potential tactics (one senso at double ress, + 3 DC...), but in the long run it's probably gonna still be 2 RT 2 Fade 1 Hive and 1*3 DC. Currently chambers are all more or less balanced, but clans (in europe) prefer to stay in the D-M-S style because they're lazy working with MCs or SCs (and because fades without DCs seem to be harder to play, and people love their fades). Imo a bit of a tweak could make all chambers candidate to the first position.
But, again, I didn't play lately with the plugin and I might even had forgotten the whole concept.
The thing is, in clan wars you don't play to have fun as much as you play to win(ie you make your very best effort), so you're still going to want the "best chamber first" regardless of unchained or not(then again, since SC is often damn awesome for skulks, they might get SC first and then DCs as someone gets enough for fade. idk, I'm not in any clans). However in pubs, unchained will make a difference, in that people can get the upgrade they prefer for their current lifeform, rather than the upgrade the majority prefers for the better lifeforms(Fade). Yet still allowing that majority to get their upgrade. Meaning both the one guy who wants something else than DC for their skulk, is happy, as well as everyone who wants DC for fade. Win-win. At least as far as fun goes. Right now I think that if the marines are aware of unchained being installed and act accordingly, they still have the same chance to win. However any larger balance changes, like buffing alien resource income or whatever, will severely unbalance unchained, making it... not fun, for marines. Meanwhile, "the one guy" will still be bored in chained servers, even though it is balanced.
I'll be honest, given a choice between evenly balanced chambers that are all equally feasible hive 1 choices, and unchained chambers, I would take the balanced chambers. Unchained is better than the DMS status quo we have now, but it does have its flaws; it still encourages a set build pattern, just to a lesser extent, and it considerably simplifies the alien tech tree. In a perfect world, all 3 chambers would have their equal ups and downs and none of them would gimp the most important aspect of the alien team, the Fade. So far, though, I'm not convinced that the devs know how to do that and Unchained is a much more realistic goal.
Some good clans that I've watched don't go DC first. They use gorges for healing. Defense comes later. They were really good with the heal spray. Like little mobile medics. If teams played like that, defense chambers would be useless till Onos.
Truth be told, I'd probably like the chambers to be all perfectly balanced and all viable 1st hive options. But I'm realistic enough to know that this is an almost impossible goal, and would require a tremendous amount of restructuring and rebalancing. The entire alien side would have to be fundamentally changed to alter the dominance of DCs. The entire marine side would have to undergo similar changes so that SC or MC 1 hive aliens could mount a sufficient threat.
Given that HL2 is a stone's throw away, and NS2 will soon become the focus of further development, I just don't think that the dev team will be able to produce a build in which all chambers are equally viable choices in any order. I have tremendous faith in the programming ability of Flayra and his developer minions, but I know they're still human. Unchaining, in my opinion, offers us the simplest and most effective way to both break the DMS order. Heck, it's a heap more fun as well. Chained chambers, even balanced ones, won't produce the same kind of fluid gameplay that unchaining gives the game.
There was a short time during 2.0 when it was actually a toss up between MDS and DMS. Celerity gave you a 33% increase per level. At level2 you're already as fast as you are now. Then add another 33% to that. It was fantastic in every meaning of the word. But was horribly unbalanced as the marines had almost no chance of winning. The problem with sensory is that it does not offer the offensive punch that MC's and DC's have. The only time I've heard of them being used in a clan match first was on Nancy and if you look at nancy the marines have to go through either messhall or auxgen to get anything other than 1 node. So having a chamber that excells at a defensive play stlye works wonderfully And I agree with Illuminex totally especially on the re-chaining the lifeforms.
Comments
Isn't my fault at the community, or if you are part of those 'whiners' Nem.
Nadagast* <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Passive regen is the only way you're gonna stop DC dominance... regeneration is just too good. It needs to be replaced and regen needs to be passive, and the chambers would have to be rebalanced but it would let people choose what chamber they want.
Nadagast* <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Passive regen is the only way you're gonna stop DC dominance... regeneration is just too good. It needs to be replaced and regen needs to be passive, and the chambers would have to be rebalanced but it would let people choose what chamber they want. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I strongly support this. however, it will not be enough to eliminate regen as best upgrade. If you just do so, another chamber will take the DCs place as first chamber. OR people will just take cara and be happy with their passive regeneration...
Unchaining is the only way to prevent any kind of "best" first chamber for teh win!!11!.
To answer the initial posters question:
The reason we want this to be implemented and not be dependent on a plugin, is proper balancing.
Right now, unchained chambers pretty much balance themselves due to rescost and alien res shortage in early game.
However, the developers are going to tweak the resincome for aliens sooner or later. So if the early game resshortage is tweaked and the alien progression is balanced for chained servers, it is going to be overpowering for unchained servers, simply because gorges will most certainly be able to build more chambers in shorter amount of time.
This actually could unbalance the unchained plugin. To make this balanced for further builds, and not just another cool plugin like lerklift, it needs to be officially implemented, tested and balanced.
Unchained chambers or not, in 6v6 clanwars, people will still dedicate one person to build chambers (because they need 2 RT 2 fades and 1 hive, most of the time), and this will be DC again. Once they have enough ress they'll build MCs, but not as much earlier as when you build MCs once your 2nd hive is up. Sure, it opens a lot of potential tactics (one senso at double ress, + 3 DC...), but in the long run it's probably gonna still be 2 RT 2 Fade 1 Hive and 1*3 DC.
Currently chambers are all more or less balanced, but clans (in europe) prefer to stay in the D-M-S style because they're lazy working with MCs or SCs (and because fades without DCs seem to be harder to play, and people love their fades). Imo a bit of a tweak could make all chambers candidate to the first position.
But, again, I didn't play lately with the plugin and I might even had forgotten the whole concept.
However in pubs, unchained will make a difference, in that people can get the upgrade they prefer for their current lifeform, rather than the upgrade the majority prefers for the better lifeforms(Fade). Yet still allowing that majority to get their upgrade. Meaning both the one guy who wants something else than DC for their skulk, is happy, as well as everyone who wants DC for fade. Win-win.
At least as far as fun goes. Right now I think that if the marines are aware of unchained being installed and act accordingly, they still have the same chance to win. However any larger balance changes, like buffing alien resource income or whatever, will severely unbalance unchained, making it... not fun, for marines. Meanwhile, "the one guy" will still be bored in chained servers, even though it is balanced.
Given that HL2 is a stone's throw away, and NS2 will soon become the focus of further development, I just don't think that the dev team will be able to produce a build in which all chambers are equally viable choices in any order. I have tremendous faith in the programming ability of Flayra and his developer minions, but I know they're still human. Unchaining, in my opinion, offers us the simplest and most effective way to both break the DMS order. Heck, it's a heap more fun as well. Chained chambers, even balanced ones, won't produce the same kind of fluid gameplay that unchaining gives the game.
The problem with sensory is that it does not offer the offensive punch that MC's and DC's have. The only time I've heard of them being used in a clan match first was on Nancy and if you look at nancy the marines have to go through either messhall or auxgen to get anything other than 1 node. So having a chamber that excells at a defensive play stlye works wonderfully
And I agree with Illuminex totally especially on the re-chaining the lifeforms.