RFK
SmoodCroozn
Join Date: 2003-11-04 Member: 22310Members
Join Date: 2003-11-04 Member: 22310Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Not just your opinions, but reasons</div>I made this to continue the thread we had earlier, NOT the flame/whine part, but the part that was about intelligent posts with reasoning behind it.
Since the other thread more or less evolved about RFK, I guess it should deserver its own topic.
My stance on RFK:
I do agree that larger games need more resources, but I do not agree that rf"Kills" is the best way. I believe it's a sloppy procedure that only rewards people who just happen to land the last hit, rather than the team that did it.
So I agree that the reasoning behind RFK is sound, but HOW it's done, as in landing the last hit is sloppy.
I've always wondered why res couldn't scale with player size. The formula would obviously be:
Number of players / 12 = resource rate
And while some people say that killing someone should reward you with something; that's exactly what it does. You live, your enemy doesn't. Not enough? Perhaps killing this skulk allowed you to finish that PG to ninja the second hive for the ultimate win.
Or maybe killing a marine in base allowed that skulk to take down the obs, which then allowed the skulk to take down the AA.
The moral is that killing isn't just about getting the res. It's also about gaining territory, at least temporarily. And in NS, territory is extremely important: 2nd hive locations, double res, etc.
Since the other thread more or less evolved about RFK, I guess it should deserver its own topic.
My stance on RFK:
I do agree that larger games need more resources, but I do not agree that rf"Kills" is the best way. I believe it's a sloppy procedure that only rewards people who just happen to land the last hit, rather than the team that did it.
So I agree that the reasoning behind RFK is sound, but HOW it's done, as in landing the last hit is sloppy.
I've always wondered why res couldn't scale with player size. The formula would obviously be:
Number of players / 12 = resource rate
And while some people say that killing someone should reward you with something; that's exactly what it does. You live, your enemy doesn't. Not enough? Perhaps killing this skulk allowed you to finish that PG to ninja the second hive for the ultimate win.
Or maybe killing a marine in base allowed that skulk to take down the obs, which then allowed the skulk to take down the AA.
The moral is that killing isn't just about getting the res. It's also about gaining territory, at least temporarily. And in NS, territory is extremely important: 2nd hive locations, double res, etc.
Comments
*sigh* ok ive been told to explain lol
Its bad reasoning because:
Youre saying that removing a player from the game temporarily is a detriment to the team,
but giving a player more res is a bad thing.
Giving concentrated RFK is a lot more feasible than giving unconcentrated RFK when youre dealing in minute increments, your arguments as to its flaw in design are aesthetical only and as such completely irrelevent to game balance.
So I say again, more reason please, less happy land laalaa tripped out nonsense <3
Game is fine without RFK at our servers - We needed only a little tweaking to the alien start res, that's it. Not all game are BETTER or are more fun to play, but this is the backside on public servers.
As i stated before: having uneven teams in strength and size is another problem that disabled RFK won't remove. But that's true for all games, i belive.
I think this is because you used to get your res entirely from nodes, so to get res you had to hold areas. R4K allows players to get res simply from killing enemies, which doesn't require them to hold territory. The effect is that individual player skill (ability to kill enemies) is more important than tactics (ability to hold territory). Thats how it seems to me anyway.
OF publics, RFK makes the strong players stronger, but not neccessarily the team. A good share of good players are capable of ruining a whole game only because 1 'PRO'-Fade kills all marines and stops all marine movement, if they can't stop this fade. Without RFK, not the single player is important, but TEAMWORK is. Even good players have only a share on the res earned by RT's, so even they depend on DEFENDING these RT's (even if they refuse to drop some, because saving res for themself is highly common).
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Removing RFK wont stop 1 man army fades from winning a game it will only delay their fade abit,
and are you claiming that the "good players" saving for lifeforms aint helping defending rts because of rfk? because all i see is good players defending res while the rest of the team usually are doing something irrelevant in a vent.
RFK also encourages teamwork like baiting even if you dont see it too often because people prefer to get good stats over helping the team but its not like this would change with the removal of RFK.
Removing RFK wont stop 1 man army fades from winning a game it will only delay their fade abit,
and are you claiming that the "good players" saving for lifeforms aint helping defending rts because of rfk? because all i see is good players defending res while the rest of the team usually are doing something irrelevant in a vent.
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..or are oc-spamming in the hiveroom <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
Moreover good players that don't die get 100res and contribute to the res situation due to res overflow, thus rfk even helps to reach that 100res faster as a fade.
Removing RFK wont stop 1 man army fades from winning a game it will only delay their fade abit,
and are you claiming that the "good players" saving for lifeforms aint helping defending rts because of rfk? because all i see is good players defending res while the rest of the team usually are doing something irrelevant in a vent.
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No, I'm claiming that (on publics!) many good players are only going for KILLS, not for strategical targets. In most times they will also be the first, if the team is going to loose the game, to press F4 or leave the server.
So i think disabling RFK has some other side effects, too: The more players (as alien) are saving for higher lifeforms, the less res they get because noone is going to build RT's.
It's getting back to a balance of building and fighting: Not everyone is going to fight FIRST, but their part's are needed as well. And aranging this is called teamwork. Something many publics are missing nowadays.
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Moreover good players that don't die get 100res and contribute to the res situation due to res overflow, thus rfk even helps to reach that 100res faster as a fade.
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And so always the same are going to be fade, and the not-so-good are forced to do the dirty work?
Remember, i'm talking about a ideal situation of two teams, equal in size and strength.
No, I'm claiming that (on publics!) many good players are only going for KILLS, not for strategical targets. In most times they will also be the first, if the team is going to loose the game, to press F4 or leave the server.
So i think disabling RFK has some other side effects, too: The more players (as alien) are saving for higher lifeforms, the less res they get because noone is going to build RT's.
It's getting back to a balance of building and fighting: Not everyone is going to fight FIRST, but their part's are needed as well. And aranging this is called teamwork. Something many publics are missing nowadays.
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There already is a balance, atleast in clan games where roughly half the team builds something and the rest saves for a lifeform.
I dont see how removing RFK will make players who play only for getting kills to play more for strategical objectives like rts since they most likely already do this to be able to go fade/lerk/onos even faster and get even more kills.
If you remove RFK and raise the resflow wont this encourage and make it easier to just oc spam the ish out of maps?
RFK has a lot of strengths and a lot of weaknesses. I challenge those of you with a position on RFK to try to post a counter-argument to your own position. If you think RFK is a good thing, try to list the problems it causes. Try to predict what a game of NS would be like without RFK. If you think RFK is a bad thing, try to list its strengths. If you can't accomplish this, then I put it to you that you are not being objective. I accept that on the balance, it is fair to decide whether overall you think RFK is a good or a bad thing, but surely you have to be able to see that this is not a clear-cut decision.
Without RFK and without an alteration to alien res flow it will be impossible for aliens to win in anything over 6vs6 and even then it will be hard.
RFK also adds some randomness to the game since you cant know exactly when the first fade/hive/lerk/onos is going up.
Btw i dont like how you get 1-3 res for a kill i think it should be a set number.
What do you think about having different rfk depending on what alien class you are? like 1 res for onos kills and 5 for a gorge kill.
Anyway, I'll continue on with my view on RFK, then post a counter to it.
People say that in larger games, res is needed more. I say sure, but getting it from HAPPENING to land the last hit on a player does not come close to any strategy. The extra res isn't my concern, but the method in obtaining is not stable.
Sure the fade could be the one mopping up the marines, but the skulk would be the one parasiting, the gorge would be the one healing, the lerk could be the one umbraing, yet the fade, who just happens to do the last part of the job gets the reward. It's as if the applause goes only to the last actors of a play, not the people in act 1, 2, etc.
If you need more resources, make RTs generate more. Take the number of players, divide it by 12, then multiply that times the current res rate (res per 2 seconds I believe).
What I can see that removing RFK would do is that there would be a slower amount of resources on both teams. Marines would be hindered with having to wait a long time before dropping boxes of heavies later game. As an alien, if you died as an onos in a large game, expect to never get to that form again. Rts would be a large part of the focus on the game. Skulks, regardless of their skill, would rush headlong into turret masses.
Or perhaps it's the snowball effect that we are all worked up for. Perhaps even with or without RFK, the winner will win. RFK just helps to magnify the results more.
It will always be impossible to get the same performance from both teams. RFK reduces the chances of a novice team beating a skilled team.
Ultimatly, RFK benefits the player with the twitch-skill. I say this as a fact. I would love to see it benefitting teamwork and strategy as well, or don't benefit these at all.
If it's like this, I think you should change it to get different amount of res killing a different lifeform or good equipted marine
<b>Suggestion 1:</b>
skulk: 1res
lerk, gorge: 2res
fade, onos: 3res
marine (lmg): 1res
marine (sg/hmg/gl): 2res
marine (jp/ha): 3res
OR
<b>Suggestion 2:</b>
every kill: 2res (and no random)
But I also think, if one alien makes a kill, the whole team have to get the res like the res of the rts.
because, so 1 good fade doesn't get so much res, that if he dies, he can't go fade again.
If the kill-res will be distributed to the teammates, everyone has to use his res, and become a higher lifeform. So the whole team can't win with one good fade, there have to be more good fade/lerk... player.
--RFK helps to smooth out alien res flow across different sizes of games. In small games, the income from RTs is plenty, and there wont be many kills to offer RFK. As the games get larger, alien tech is delayed because RT income is split among more players, but more RFK is available to make up some of the difference. For example, say you hit 50 res for a Hive at 3:30 in a small game. In a larger game, getting that same 50 res would happen at 4:30 with RFK, but not until 6:00 without RFK.
--RFK offers teams that are behind a chance to afford what they need for a comeback, even if they have few RTs remaining. The team that is ahead will still have the advantage, but that advantage becomes less overwhelming if the entire alien team doesn't have to wait on the res from 1 RT.
--If all of one teams RTs are destroyed, they have a way to gain the necessary res to rebuild one. Anyone remember back in 1.04, when each team had a Phantom RT? Even if all of your RTs were destroyed, you still got 1 res per tick, which would eventually allow you to rebuild your base RT. RFK allowed us to remove that non-sensical crutch.
Cons of RFK--
--Perma-gorging is discouraged, because Gorges get much less income in RFK than any other class. However, they still do get some RFK, which is better then they would get if RFK was removed without proportionally increasing res flow from RTs. Battle-Gorging, on the other hand, is encouraged, and quite fun.
I played on large servers almost exclusively in th 1.04 era and I don't remember a significant problem. IIRC, aliens won about 67% of the games on one of those servers, probably because the more experienced players in that community prefered alien.
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I disagree partially.
When playing against a commander that knew what he was doing, the commander would simply send a few people to cap res, build an obs and send the rest to dominate the hive. If that didn't work the commander could tech JPs and HMGs around the 4:00 minute mark (faster than the any feasible counter the aliens throw back at the marines), and dominate the hive in one and a half HMG clips.
IF playing against a "scrub" commander (i.e. two hive lockdowns) which was extremely prevelant within the beginning versions (most players would prefer to +use rather than shoot, scared of an even conflict). Unfortunately the majority of commanders did not know either willingly or otherwise how to exploit the other team.
In large servers marines absolutely dominated, which was the driving force behind the changes for 2.01 (aliens were deemed unable to defend themselves adequately in the early game.) I am curious as to where your 67% comes from and I would be eager to read further statistics regarding that matter.
-With RFK aliens can be faster at getting a fade or a 2nd hive.
Conclusion: witheout RFK aliens would be pretty much stuck with the same timeframe all the time, thus RFK makes the game more dynamic and less boring.
-Witheout RFK skulks could be played as "suicide" untis.
-With RFK every skulk dying hurts your own team.
Conclusion: If skulks would grant 0 RFK and marines res would come in a little bit quicker, we could actually have those: "A hord of drones throws themselve into the mob of attavckers in order to save the collective" stuations.
"A hord of drones throws themselve into the mob of attavckers in order to save the collective" stuations.
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Wouldn't happen in pubs; already happens in competitive play. I don't think I've ever heard of any kind of strategy use RFK as a factor for anything (viability, efficacy, etc).
Wouldn't happen in pubs; already happens in competitive play. I don't think I've ever heard of any kind of strategy use RFK as a factor for anything (viability, efficacy, etc).
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Well of course not <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
A skulks live is worth an average of 2 res and they spawn one after another. So witheout basic coordination you never get 4-5 skulks to attack together. Not even on 12+vs12+ servers <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
I just wanted to point out, that even the basic skulk is more of an silent assassin, than a cheap drone that gladly gives it live for the greater good. My understanding of the skulks role just doesnt match the current gameplay. Thats all.
As for using rfk as a factor in a strategy: You can focus on 1 single skulk getting the last bite, but you cannot really control it above the "who is the bait" level.
In other words, does it make sense for a skulk who is doing well to get the resources himself or should the resources he accrues be doled out to the team like the commies would do.
... and the marines would always win.
As for using rfk as a factor in a strategy: You can focus on 1 single skulk getting the last bite, but you cannot really control it above the "who is the bait" level.
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That's not really a strategy; that's a tactic. Most people do that autonomously if the situation allows for it...
That skulk getting alot of kills early mid-game isnt just good himself, he probably has an aware lerk or fade helping him get them.