3.03
inverted
Join Date: 2004-02-16 Member: 26619Members, NS1 Playtester
Join Date: 2004-02-16 Member: 26619Members, NS1 Playtester
<div class="IPBDescription">...</div> I have some questions for the devs: is 3.03 a joke or an attempt to make every ns strat player leave? Did you test this new version at all, because I know you didnt get the playtestors to test it, or did you just arbitrarily decide to make the changes? And finally do any of the devs actually play ns?
Ive been playing 3.03 all day today on pubs and the rines have won every game with fast pgs. The bonus from aliens getting early chambers is over and without chambers it has become very difficult to kill rines early.
The changes that were made have not addressed the balance problems, what they seem to me to have done is to allow marines to dominate pubs early, with aliens not being able to get a look in.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the devs need new blood and fresh ideas, the current devs seem to have no idea about the current game, each new release has dissappointed people more and not because people see change as bad but because the changes have been bad.
Ive been playing 3.03 all day today on pubs and the rines have won every game with fast pgs. The bonus from aliens getting early chambers is over and without chambers it has become very difficult to kill rines early.
The changes that were made have not addressed the balance problems, what they seem to me to have done is to allow marines to dominate pubs early, with aliens not being able to get a look in.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the devs need new blood and fresh ideas, the current devs seem to have no idea about the current game, each new release has dissappointed people more and not because people see change as bad but because the changes have been bad.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
O-key...
Ive been playing 3.03 all day today on pubs and the rines have won every game with fast pgs. The bonus from aliens getting early chambers is over and without chambers it has become very difficult to kill rines early.
The changes that were made have not addressed the balance problems, what they seem to me to have done is to allow marines to dominate pubs early, with aliens not being able to get a look in.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the devs need new blood and fresh ideas, the current devs seem to have no idea about the current game, each new release has dissappointed people more and not because people see change as bad but because the changes have been bad. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oi, 2's right, you cant come to a conclusion about something like this that fast. Also, it would be smarter to complain in such a way that didnt involve insulting the competence of the people who are trying to fix the game you are playing for free.
Good job d00d. Play a scrim recently? Considering you're posting in Competitve, I'd advise you that this change was championed by competitive players.
Ive been playing 3.03 all day today on pubs <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I stopped reading right there. Glance at the forum name, then read where I stopped reading. Please post whining like this elsewhere.
Ive been playing 3.03 all day today on pubs and the rines have won every game with fast pgs. The bonus from aliens getting early chambers is over and without chambers it has become very difficult to kill rines early.
The changes that were made have not addressed the balance problems, what they seem to me to have done is to allow marines to dominate pubs early, with aliens not being able to get a look in.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the devs need new blood and fresh ideas, the current devs seem to have no idea about the current game, each new release has dissappointed people more and not because people see change as bad but because the changes have been bad. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
why are you posting this in this forum.
I've always thought armor should add a lot more protection than it does. Currently marines still do not get substantially tougher as they add armor, in fact armor3 adds no more protection than armor2 in terms of 1on1 fights at 100%. I've always thought it should be 3/4/4/5 in terms of skulk bites for a fully armored marine. It should also take 3 focus fade swipes at armor3, not 2. Focus fades just destroy non-HA marines, which is something I've had plenty of experience with (hi mustang). Armor3 has never been a really viable upgrade route for just this reason, it won't help marines survive longer, which is the commander's goal in upgrading armor.
Please, play the ball and not the man. How many times are you guys going to rattle the 'not from our camp' cage? If someone's argument is wrong it should be demonstratably so.
Also, read this: <a href='http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html' target='_blank'>http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/a...-authority.html</a>
If these people are so wrong, then you should be able to demonstrate it easily without resorting to petty snipes . When you resort to such tactics, it is you that looks the fool.
We'll take another round of balance after we see how much impact this one have had. It's good to hear that the armor is helping a bit.
There is alot of things you can do to prevent marines from locking down that second hive and preventing your fades/lerks/onos from becoming compleatly useless. Remember when the released 3.0f and everyone was accosting them for compleatly destroying the balance of the game? well this is the same thing.
The only thing that has changed is about the first 30-1:30 seconds that it would take for a commander to get A1 up. Sieges are still **** useless without lifeform damage if you don't have a million offence chambers in your hive location.
I would reduce the movement chamber adrenaline bonus back to what it was.
I would have sieges force knockback, that way gorges sitting on a hive can be knocked off.
These are some ideas that I feel will help the marines.
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Amazing idea! Is it possible?
Seriously, the only way we can do these patches during 'normal' development is to keep them to number changes (thus reducing the technical testing overhead drastically). Don't expect major changes in .0.x patches.
inverted, tanke and puzl already summed it up. Nobody will keep you from voicing your opinion; there's no reason to scream to be heard. If you dislike a certain update, that's OK and will be taken seriously. Generalizing this valid, personal opinion to "the people" is only going to distract from your points.
I'd suggest you give 3.0.3 a little more time to see what strategies develop, and voice your opinion then. We'll be here to listen.
Please, play the ball and not the man. How many times are you guys going to rattle the 'not from our camp' cage? If someone's argument is wrong it should be demonstratably so.
Also, read this: <a href='http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html' target='_blank'>http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/a...-authority.html</a>
If these people are so wrong, then you should be able to demonstrate it easily without resorting to petty snipes . When you resort to such tactics, it is you that looks the fool. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Since you broke out the logical fallacies:
Appeal to Authority is when the subject is not an expert in the field. If certain competitive individuals are not subject matter experts in the field of NS balance(Duo, myself, FireWater), I do not know who is. In fact the opposite is true, we have no reason to believe the original poster because they have no claim to be an expert in the field of NS balance, while certain individuals in the competitive community that have posted here are indeed experts in the field of ns balance.
The original posters ideas of ns balance are also invalid because of a <a href='http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/hasty.htm' target='_blank'>hasty generalization</a>. It is impossible to tell how 3.0.3 is balanced based on only a couple of days worth of games, which is due to people not having enough time to master the changes. The original poster most likely posted this due to not having a sufficient background to make such a statement (He is not an expert).
Good enough puzl?
From my playing experience on 3.03 I stand by my earlier comments. This patch has boosted up the marines early game in pubs (I have played maybe 8 hours on this patch. gogo last days of holidays) to the point where rines are now winning 75% of the games. From the scrims and pugs I have played on this version the changes have not altered the dominance of aliens early, especially with sens. While combat still comes down to a large number of onos' and one web gorge carrying aliens to victory.
@ Router and the others who passed comment on my opinions, how do you know my experience level in ns? How do you know that I cant recognise the problems in ns and what the changes have done? Amazingly the number of posts on these forums doesnt determine how pro you are. Just because you cant predict or determine how the changes implemented in 3.03 will effect gameplay doesnt mean that I can't.
It seems obvious to me that these changes are a good idea. I play 5-7 scrims a night, and pub when i have time. I'm not talking from my posting exp, i'm talking from my playing exp.
What are the two things that usually happen when the two sides first encounter. Either a rush/fast ambush or a parasite and fall back. If the marine is parasited, the start will unfold like normal.
As for the way pub games were playing out, being that the change only adds 5 armour, 1 single spore attack would eliminate the added bonuses of the extra armour. If marines rush with a phase gate, aliens should usually choose to get an early life form to counter it. A lerk would once again even the stakes.
On the other side though, this opens up more strategies for marines. One such option, an early shotgun and welder is now viable, considering that the welder would now increase the longevity of the marines without the need for early armour 1. I'll leave some other strategies up to the creative minds of the players here. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
PS. Yes I call it 'armour'. I'm Australian scum <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I'm pretty sure that by the time a marine phases and steps out of the spore, it will eliminate the advantage of +5 armour
Look at it from this perspective:
Thesis one: The main advantage of a server-side numbertweak is the speed with which it can be created and deployed. We can run them alongside regular development without of delaying the next big release.
Thesis two: Such number tweaks are not that big a thing. Yes, those +5 armor are a pretty elegant trick, but all said and done, their major effects are generally calculable. All unexpected effects will be comparably subtle.
Assuming these two thesises true, PT testing can not hope to provide us with viable balance feedback without of negating the whole advantage of such small patches. We can run two major PT sessions and, if needs be, another two smaller sessions a week. By our rule of thumb, it usually takes multiple dozen hours of playtime before subtle balance effects show as anything but occasional flukes. In other words, we'd have to test these two tweaks for multiple weeks to get viable feedback out of the playtesters, who could've, say, further investigated the hitbox issues in the same time. See where this is going?
We'll continue to test bigger changes with the PTs and possibly CMs first, but in case of such small incremental changes, it's just more sensible to release them into the wild and be prepared to do follow-ups.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->This patch has boosted up the marines early game in pubs (I have played maybe 8 hours on this patch. gogo last days of holidays) to the point where rines are now winning 75% of the games.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This must feel like pot-shots to you by now, but let's take a look at that statistic:
According to my mail timestamps, NS 3.0.3 has been released to the servers for (let's round it off to make the maths easier) 40 hours by now. Assuming that you got these stats from one of the first-tier servers, and assuming that this server runs at full capacities for half the day (both <i>very</i> friendly assumptions), it'd have seen forty Classic games by now (assumed average gametime 30 minutes). In other words, if there was one cheater around for two games and teams were stacked on three other occasions, the total statistic is off by 12,5%.
What am I trying to tell you? I'm trying to tell you that there is no way in heaven or hell you, or anyone else, including myself, can make meaningful statements about the win-loss ratios under the new patch until a few more games could happen.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->From the scrims and pugs I have played on this version the changes have not altered the dominance of aliens early, especially with sens. While combat still comes down to a large number of onos' and one web gorge carrying aliens to victory.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And here, you contradict yourself. Our changes make no difference, but the marines suddenly win thrice as much as before?
Please, if you want to start a discussion, do. But stick to the facts.
What are the two things that usually happen when the two sides first encounter. Either a rush/fast ambush or a parasite and fall back. If the marine is parasited, the start will unfold like normal.
As for the way pub games were playing out, being that the change only adds 5 armour, 1 single spore attack would eliminate the added bonuses of the extra armour. If marines rush with a phase gate, aliens should usually choose to get an early life form to counter it. A lerk would once again even the stakes.
On the other side though, this opens up more strategies for marines. One such option, an early shotgun and welder is now viable, considering that the welder would now increase the longevity of the marines without the need for early armour 1. I'll leave some other strategies up to the creative minds of the players here. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
PS. Yes I call it 'armour'. I'm Australian scum <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I half agree with you, but the time between a0 and a1, assuming you get it straight away, is longer than you taking a parasite straight away 'because you had to be there, and it's topographical'. There'll be marines running around/standing in corridors you know nothing about, who will take 3 bites unless you hit them with a quick parasite while you bhop at him, before you die.
So yeah, this change does help. Whether it's enough, is hard to say yet, but i'm tempted to go for "no".
From what i've seen and played <b>so far</b>, i'd say there need to be a few more of these minor tweaks and this game'll be just fine.
What are the two things that usually happen when the two sides first encounter. Either a rush/fast ambush or a parasite and fall back. If the marine is parasited, the start will unfold like normal.
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You're under the assumption that people dont weld each other <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I like this idea Fire but maybe something like what an onos's gore did to friendly players (ie the bug that was removed) who touching the same structure.
He said "when the two sides first encounter" Hsu. Not many comms drop welders right at the start of the game for capping nodes.
Marines are still screwed mid game though. Last night in a scrim on ns_tanith we had 7 res nodes capped outside of marine start (basically every RT on the map except Waste Hive & Sat Comm hive) & still couldn't touch the alien hives because they had 2 competent Fades with Focus while we had Jetpacks with level 3 armour. 2 swipes you're dead & it is impossible to weld against that especially when you factor lerks & skulks into it too. If 3.0.4 or 3.1 could address the Focus-Armour imbalance it would be excellent.
Very impressed that all the 3.0 final server patches have been to address the concerns of mostly the Competitive community. It makes a nice change from constant <span style='color:red'>ADAPT OR ***LOCKED***</span> which became the norm for some time in other parts of this board. Good to see that the dev team do listen to our concerns with the game despite what the majority of competitive players seem to think. Keep it up.
P.S I like the knockback idea for sieges (the push effect certainly, not the conc gren thing).
At 380 it is exactly one less volley from 3 sieges to kill a hive, most likely 400 throws that off to some degree.