It's not a horrid suggestion, LudiKalell, but i feer that too many of the alien team members would be too greedy, and always grab any res they can for onos, and effectively stave the rest of the team for res. It's just too abusable in my opinion
it's not about abuse.. it's about giving the aliens better chances..
IF on a pub server some aliens get too greedy and get more ressources to quickly go to onos it helps the team.. if they r too greedy and are bad player getting killed almost instantly.. well..
what I want to say is.. the prob, as mentioned before, is.. most aliens have lets say.. 45 res, it's an 16vs 16 server, and the marines have heavy armor.. with 5 res towers, every aien gets a res within.. 9 secs; the rines with 3 res towers get a res every second.. and the upgrades being permenant for all rines, a.s.o.
there CAN'T be enough fades or oni to defend the hive, or mass OCs to do this... the aliens just lack ressources.. SO if there are 1 or 2 ONI (if they get there through abusing doesn't matter) it's at least a chance
if the aliens can't get a consens(meaning EVERY alien wants a piece of the cake..) they have the same chances as before.. the res is distributed evenly among the aliens, bad chances again..
so for servers where aliens can't manage themselves.. well.. same (bad) chances
but the game should be balanced for both sides DOING THEIR BEST (aka clan-play), cause if it balanced for teamplaying marines versus individual aliens (as so often said before), it's totally messed up if managed aliens play vs managed marines..
The problem with this (and with my own res-sharing idea as well I now realize) is the threat of a way-early advanced life-form.
Someone who's an uber-fade goes and sucks on an RT for a minute or so could then go fade extra early.. Well before the marines have a chance to be ready to meet it.
This would lead to total slaughter of the marine side based almost entirely on the one uber-fade.
Not fun for the marines. Not fun for the rest of the alien team.
If anyone here still remembers RT-sucking was originally slated to be a feature of NS v1.1 (Back then it was still called 1.1). Of course, this didn't make it to 2.0 release. Its purpose was to give gorges some sort of resource advantage over other aliens, since they no longer got their 3:1 resource distribution ratio. We've all played 2.0, and AFAIK there doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
The problem lies with the inability of individual aliens to get resources fast enough in big games. However, no alien should get resources faster than another alien, since individual aliens do not need that many resources. The main flaw with this suggestion is that it assumes everyone will take res according to this ability and need. This is unrealistic of course. It may be a good idea for clan games, but then again clan games are all 6v6 so whats the point?
If this is getting off topic, I can edit my post and make my own.
Okay, so we see lots of different opinions about res problems. Forlorn is one person that comes to mind advocating a scaling of upgrade cost. This makes perfect sense because how does 20 res magically buy more armor upgrades when the marines have 12 as opposed to 6?
Sure, realism may not be a big thing considering there is aliens and all, but you still have humans in it playing human soldiers: Defying the laws of nature just makes people realise: Hey, it is just a bunch of 1's and 0's with pretty pictures. Admittedly interactive, but still just a game.
Sure, the thought may not surface, but I know it is human nature, or at least my nature, to subconciously lose that suspension of disbelief every time you think about it.
The reasons for upgrading marines weapons on the frontlines, so far into battle with the kharaa, is a tragically unstrategic move. If the marines are being sent flying through space with a <i>light</i> machine gun, a pistol, and knife, then the marine certainly must be well trained. If the marine is well trained, then like the millions of others fighting, they should have some more specialized weaponry to increase survival in missions, wipe the kharaa out before they can respond to a marine outpost and go home alive.
The aliens, now they are subject to very few "laws" of belief when being weighed subconciously. If you ponder it for a while, you wonder how a cow can jump into the air, how an alien the size of a dog barely flinches when hit with a bullet going many times faster than it would ever go.
If the bullets are not effective against all aliens, I understand that armor piercing is not the best munition in all circumstances, you only use it when they have armor to pierce.
Shooting at an onos, hell yea you want AP rounds, but if your shooting a tiny alien those ap bullets would punch right on through, realistically dealing mortal damage if they hit a vital organ, but in NS only bleeding the alien as if shot in the leg. This "bug" I hear about all the sudden aliens taking extreme damage, I can picture this rare occurance being that lucky shot that hit an <i>alien</i> vital.
The TSA does not know much about the alien menace. The hive controls the aliens to their knowledge, but shooting the hive apparently has no ill effect on them until it is no longer living.
I say since explosives seem to have a never diminishing effect on the aliens, develop better explosives. The aliens counter bio-weapons, they counter radiation, it is unrealistic to use a universally toxic weapon against them as the TSA's goal is saving the infected ships/stations etc.
Obviously if there was a large amount of toxins present this would prove extremely difficult and wearing level 4 monkey suits (used in dealing with ebola and other extremely contagous viruses, has a built in air supply and filter.) would be costly and ineffective.
Therefore, with the resources they are withholding from equipping marines at the beginning of a mission as they phase into battle, they should be developing a way to use high explosives safely on a spaceship, and a concussive blast in an enclosed space such as an <i>airtight</i> space vessel, well, it wouldn't be too healthy no matter what physics degree you have.
Summary: Suspension of disbelief occurs within somewhat predictable circumstances. Break the atmosphere and you break the spell. I may be wrong on my points, feel free to correct me on my assumptions about the ns universe. I vote for scaling upgrade costs.
I have seen many good ideas on this and that may be the hardest part: How do you decide which idea IS the best idea? Explosives DO get better with weapon upgrades, but nothing groundbreaking. So, it IS a strategy game, and balance is necessary to keep it strategic. Fun is required to keep people playing.
The rock-paper-scissors of counters should be equally as important as a really skilled marine.
Thanks for dredging up my old thread. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Big combat servers turn to stalemates and almost always lead to alien wins since JPs can't get to hive because the map is so crowded.
NS:C maps could be made that would accomodate larger amounts of players without any need for balance changes though -- unlike NS.
There are some very popular large NS servers out there, like medpack server for 24ppl, and aliens don't really win there less than on other servers. Games seem to be decied sooner, but I still see many alien victories.. Aliens have more res to lame parts of maps and have enough good fades..
My favorite large server (and only server I play on now) is the [NAR] clan server. It has a max player of 31 and it is extremely fun.
The reason combat lasts so damn long on a larger server is because of the gorge/welder. So many players have the option to choose one of these things and prolong the game much longer than it should have. Gorge webs, that just makes the game almost instantly 30 minutes longer or until aliens just keep respawning faster than the marines can kill them.
Classic, imo, is much more fun on a larger server. Hell, it might take a bit longer for aliens to start off and crap, but this is where the teamwork of the game comes into play. If the aliens formed small groups and went off that way, it wouldn't be so hard for them. Same goes for the marines. The only thing I'd like changed is the upgrade costs for the marines. It should be brought back to the 1.04 standards. (20, 40, 60, for each level upgrade).
Eh, I just think the game really starts to get lame on big servers for aliens when there are more players than there are res nodes in the map. I mean, with 10 players on aliens, you need 5 nodes AT least to keep the fight going, for 2 ticks for each player to get 1 res. Obviously it's not a problem for marines because there res flow is the same no matter what, large or small game. So not only do aliens have a disadvantage in the res department, they are now affected by the fact that there are more marines milling about with their permanent upgrades. I only play on CoFR pretty much exclusively, and thats an 18 person server max. I think 9vs9 is the funnest semi-balance I've experienced yet.
I've never really understood why people just keep jacking their server limit up to such high limits as 32! 32! Thats 16 players per team! Insanity...insanity I say.
1 out of 5 combat games lasts something around 2-3 minutes with aliens winning the game. 3 out of 5 games are between 5-20 minutes with a team winning before more than a few players reach level 10. Well, and 1 out of 5 games lasts about 30+ minutes. Exact numbers don't matter just a approximate ratio from my experience. I have seen maybe one stalemate each week (something like 1 out of 50 games). It's just not as easy to finish the game as in small games (requires much more teamwork instead of ramboing).
I usually play on 14 player NS:CO servers, and when they have 6 - 7 on each team it seems fair.... Less than 5 players on each team its a bit touch and go, depending on the map and skills of the players.
For Classic though, I like to play on big servers, 24 player ones, and aliens usually end up dying off and taking ages to respawn while rines beacon and march into the hive en masse. Quite simply spawn rates need to be increased, because even if marine upgrades are made more expensive and so on, aliens will still get swarmed over by the faster spawning rines and die. Maybe reduce the cost of the second hive but increase the cost of the third, but this would give the aliens access to their abilities faster. Maybe they would have to build the hive first as a spawning hive for say 25 res, then pay 20 to res to upgrade the hive, so aliens recieve their 2nd hive ability and another chamber type. A full hive could still be built outright at a cost of 40.
Though it's not really related to the problem, I like Memphis' suggestion of a seperate res pool for alien buildings.... perhaps you could have one alien (a gorg) interface with the hive and get the bacteria to form a building at the location of its choosing from the res pool, and not individual res. Or just have the cost of any buildings dropped by a gorg taken out of the shared 'building' res pool. This would encourage some aliens to use their res for chamber upgrades more often, and super skulk instead of saving it up for buildings (so where now you generally have on a team of 8, 2 (temp)gorges, 2 perm gorges, 3/2 fade, 1/2 onos, you'd have the temp and perm gorges become super skulks.
Comments
IF on a pub server some aliens get too greedy and get more ressources to quickly go to onos it helps the team.. if they r too greedy and are bad player getting killed almost instantly.. well..
what I want to say is.. the prob, as mentioned before, is.. most aliens have lets say.. 45 res, it's an 16vs 16 server, and the marines have heavy armor..
with 5 res towers, every aien gets a res within.. 9 secs; the rines with 3 res towers get a res every second.. and the upgrades being permenant for all rines, a.s.o.
there CAN'T be enough fades or oni to defend the hive, or mass OCs to do this...
the aliens just lack ressources.. SO if there are 1 or 2 ONI (if they get there through abusing doesn't matter) it's at least a chance
if the aliens can't get a consens(meaning EVERY alien wants a piece of the cake..) they have the same chances as before.. the res is distributed evenly among the aliens, bad chances again..
so for servers where aliens can't manage themselves.. well.. same (bad) chances
but the game should be balanced for both sides DOING THEIR BEST (aka clan-play), cause if it balanced for teamplaying marines versus individual aliens (as so often said before), it's totally messed up if managed aliens play vs managed marines..
get me ?
Someone who's an uber-fade goes and sucks on an RT for a minute or so could then go fade extra early.. Well before the marines have a chance to be ready to meet it.
This would lead to total slaughter of the marine side based almost entirely on the one uber-fade.
Not fun for the marines. Not fun for the rest of the alien team.
The problem lies with the inability of individual aliens to get resources fast enough in big games. However, no alien should get resources faster than another alien, since individual aliens do not need that many resources. The main flaw with this suggestion is that it assumes everyone will take res according to this ability and need. This is unrealistic of course. It may be a good idea for clan games, but then again clan games are all 6v6 so whats the point?
Okay, so we see lots of different opinions about res problems. Forlorn is one person that comes to mind advocating a scaling of upgrade cost. This makes perfect sense because how does 20 res magically buy more armor upgrades when the marines have 12 as opposed to 6?
Sure, realism may not be a big thing considering there is aliens and all, but you still have humans in it playing human soldiers: Defying the laws of nature just makes people realise: Hey, it is just a bunch of 1's and 0's with pretty pictures. Admittedly interactive, but still just a game.
Sure, the thought may not surface, but I know it is human nature, or at least my nature, to subconciously lose that suspension of disbelief every time you think about it.
The reasons for upgrading marines weapons on the frontlines, so far into battle with the kharaa, is a tragically unstrategic move.
If the marines are being sent flying through space with a <i>light</i> machine gun, a pistol, and knife, then the marine certainly must be well trained. If the marine is well trained, then like the millions of others fighting, they should have some more specialized weaponry to increase survival in missions, wipe the kharaa out before they can respond to a marine outpost and go home alive.
The aliens, now they are subject to very few "laws" of belief when being weighed subconciously. If you ponder it for a while, you wonder how a cow can jump into the air, how an alien the size of a dog barely flinches when hit with a bullet going many times faster than it would ever go.
If the bullets are not effective against all aliens, I understand that armor piercing is not the best munition in all circumstances, you only use it when they have armor to pierce.
Shooting at an onos, hell yea you want AP rounds, but if your shooting a tiny alien those ap bullets would punch right on through, realistically dealing mortal damage if they hit a vital organ, but in NS only bleeding the alien as if shot in the leg. This "bug" I hear about all the sudden aliens taking extreme damage, I can picture this rare occurance being that lucky shot that hit an <i>alien</i> vital.
The TSA does not know much about the alien menace. The hive controls the aliens to their knowledge, but shooting the hive apparently has no ill effect on them until it is no longer living.
I say since explosives seem to have a never diminishing effect on the aliens, develop better explosives. The aliens counter bio-weapons, they counter radiation, it is unrealistic to use a universally toxic weapon against them as the TSA's goal is saving the infected ships/stations etc.
Obviously if there was a large amount of toxins present this would prove extremely difficult and wearing level 4 monkey suits (used in dealing with ebola and other extremely contagous viruses, has a built in air supply and filter.) would be costly and ineffective.
Therefore, with the resources they are withholding from equipping marines at the beginning of a mission as they phase into battle, they should be developing a way to use high explosives safely on a spaceship, and a concussive blast in an enclosed space such as an <i>airtight</i> space vessel, well, it wouldn't be too healthy no matter what physics degree you have.
Summary: Suspension of disbelief occurs within somewhat predictable circumstances. Break the atmosphere and you break the spell. I may be wrong on my points, feel free to correct me on my assumptions about the ns universe. I vote for scaling upgrade costs.
I have seen many good ideas on this and that may be the hardest part: How do you decide which idea IS the best idea? Explosives DO get better with weapon upgrades, but nothing groundbreaking. So, it IS a strategy game, and balance is necessary to keep it strategic. Fun is required to keep people playing.
The rock-paper-scissors of counters should be equally as important as a really skilled marine.
Solution:
I play combat on a 19 person server (G4B2S > *), and reg ns on 16 person servers.
Big combat servers turn to stalemates and almost always lead to alien wins since JPs can't get to hive because the map is so crowded.
NS:C maps could be made that would accomodate larger amounts of players without any need for balance changes though -- unlike NS.
The reason combat lasts so damn long on a larger server is because of the gorge/welder. So many players have the option to choose one of these things and prolong the game much longer than it should have. Gorge webs, that just makes the game almost instantly 30 minutes longer or until aliens just keep respawning faster than the marines can kill them.
Classic, imo, is much more fun on a larger server. Hell, it might take a bit longer for aliens to start off and crap, but this is where the teamwork of the game comes into play. If the aliens formed small groups and went off that way, it wouldn't be so hard for them. Same goes for the marines. The only thing I'd like changed is the upgrade costs for the marines. It should be brought back to the 1.04 standards. (20, 40, 60, for each level upgrade).
I've never really understood why people just keep jacking their server limit up to such high limits as 32! 32! Thats 16 players per team! Insanity...insanity I say.
For Classic though, I like to play on big servers, 24 player ones, and aliens usually end up dying off and taking ages to respawn while rines beacon and march into the hive en masse. Quite simply spawn rates need to be increased, because even if marine upgrades are made more expensive and so on, aliens will still get swarmed over by the faster spawning rines and die. Maybe reduce the cost of the second hive but increase the cost of the third, but this would give the aliens access to their abilities faster. Maybe they would have to build the hive first as a spawning hive for say 25 res, then pay 20 to res to upgrade the hive, so aliens recieve their 2nd hive ability and another chamber type. A full hive could still be built outright at a cost of 40.
Though it's not really related to the problem, I like Memphis' suggestion of a seperate res pool for alien buildings.... perhaps you could have one alien (a gorg) interface with the hive and get the bacteria to form a building at the location of its choosing from the res pool, and not individual res. Or just have the cost of any buildings dropped by a gorg taken out of the shared 'building' res pool. This would encourage some aliens to use their res for chamber upgrades more often, and super skulk instead of saving it up for buildings (so where now you generally have on a team of 8, 2 (temp)gorges, 2 perm gorges, 3/2 fade, 1/2 onos, you'd have the temp and perm gorges become super skulks.