Of Offense Chambers And Siege Turrets....
Rapier7
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
I think that the majority of us can agree on two facts:
The Offense Chamber is underpowered.
The Siege Cannon is overpowered.
Both in varying degrees, of course.
When a commander gets those sieges up, and has a good spot, PG+armory support, you can kiss that hive good bye.
If one place is severely lamed up such as double res for the aliens, siege, bye bye, 80 res investment (which is a huge setback for aliens).
My solution?
Make Offense Chambers cost 7 resources, and make the Turret Factory upgrade time about 30-40 seconds.
The reasoning behind this is that the offense chambers are too powerful to cost 5 res, while too puny to cost 10. 7 Is the magic number, as you can drop two right off the bat, while still costing a respectable amount to prevent spammage.
The reasoning behind the lengthy upgrade time is the constant refrain I'm hearing from the vets, "The way not to get sieged is to not let those sieges go up." You see where I'm going here? This gives the alien more time to prepare against a siege, and it makes rushing a hive with shotguns or just a surprise ninja PG more viable than sieging.
In Natural Selection, the most important aspect other than territorial control is time.
I usually siege the second building hive with impunity because the aliens can't defend it since my sieges pound away mercilessly and my marines phase in instantly to the siege spot, the aliens have to run, and if there are fades and they take severe damage, they're out of action for quite some time.
OCs 7 resources, tfac upgrade time 40 seconds.
What do you guys think?
The Offense Chamber is underpowered.
The Siege Cannon is overpowered.
Both in varying degrees, of course.
When a commander gets those sieges up, and has a good spot, PG+armory support, you can kiss that hive good bye.
If one place is severely lamed up such as double res for the aliens, siege, bye bye, 80 res investment (which is a huge setback for aliens).
My solution?
Make Offense Chambers cost 7 resources, and make the Turret Factory upgrade time about 30-40 seconds.
The reasoning behind this is that the offense chambers are too powerful to cost 5 res, while too puny to cost 10. 7 Is the magic number, as you can drop two right off the bat, while still costing a respectable amount to prevent spammage.
The reasoning behind the lengthy upgrade time is the constant refrain I'm hearing from the vets, "The way not to get sieged is to not let those sieges go up." You see where I'm going here? This gives the alien more time to prepare against a siege, and it makes rushing a hive with shotguns or just a surprise ninja PG more viable than sieging.
In Natural Selection, the most important aspect other than territorial control is time.
I usually siege the second building hive with impunity because the aliens can't defend it since my sieges pound away mercilessly and my marines phase in instantly to the siege spot, the aliens have to run, and if there are fades and they take severe damage, they're out of action for quite some time.
OCs 7 resources, tfac upgrade time 40 seconds.
What do you guys think?
Comments
Well, then you'd have to make gorging free or very close to free since the 10 res cost impedes the amount of players which can put down RTs.
And I hardly think an OC reduced 3 res will severely impact the clan scene. In fact, the few times I have scrimmed, I haven't seen an OC anywhere.
For the siege time, it could hamper the clan scene in a way. But I don't know the statistics and the regular course of action in a clan game to really comment on that.
The point is, that if you let a marine set up all that crap (Tf, turrets, Seiges, PG) then that means they are better than you, and they deserve to win.
Also, fix the res system, and beef up skulks a bit, and you'll find that suddenly, the marines don't have the res to seige as often anymore.
The purpose of increasing the upgrade time is to either a: force the marines to duke it out with those OCs, b: waste their time by sieging out a few OCs that they can't handle by themselves.
1.) You are still able to instant drop an RT at the beginning of the game.
2.) Players are more flexibly and only need 15 res to gorge and drop an OC (instead of 20 res)
you honestly think the gorge is worth 5 res? I've been with a gorge pal... heal spray and what not... and had a marine with 3 medpacks kill us both. I mean you can just FREKIN KNIFE EM to death! IMO not even worth the 2 res suggested.
Those that argue for a low or a no-cost gorge merely want to see their cost be suitable for the system applied for resource distribution and the abilities they're given (which roughly equate to a fragile, mobile repair station that occasionally gets a chance to place a res tower up <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->).
To get back on topic, in a competitive scenario (clan play) I've really noticed that it's a war of attrition with the side controlling enough res for enough time to outpace the other in terms of technology vs. abilities. This leaves little room for resource wasting structures like OC's that are effectively a small hinderance (a benefit in itself, but not comparable the resource-time that it has consumed). Play is different in pub servers where people are more relaxed about what they do. OC's play a role by delaying rambos (or at least wastes res needed to keep them alive) or absorbing several siege blasts while the team EVENTUALLY overcomes the waves of marines pouring through a phasegate.
There's no clear way to balance this structure unless it becomes useful based on its abilities reflecting the cost of placing one (which is "time" for aliens because of the resource system). By balancing the OC (a discussion which has been argued already) its cost is justified and no further balance issues are introduced as the structure should effectively be working "as intended" instead of being laughed at in general <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<i>Edit: was a bit of a thread hijack and I decided to place something pertinant to the topic in it ><;;</i>
excellent... then you wouldn't mind a extra 10 res cost tacked on every time a com drops a structure?
Offense chambers I do agree on, the resource cost for what they provide is usless.
-Rambo marines EASILY pass 2-4 of them even without med drop support
-They are easily sniped from corners because of the HUGE amount of blindspots
-They drop extremly quick, sometimes even before you can see where its under attack from hive sight.
-Oc's are good mid-late game in HUGE amounts of spam to keep the Marines in their base (you know, Ball of Dewms, Wall of Lames, forests of death, etc.)
Id say it takes 50 res to safely keep a area secure, and thats ALOT of res.
Its the cost of the OC's, its so high and should be lowered.
Don't you think the aliens become just "little" stronger?
Maybe that strong to get the game even more unbalanced..
In my eyes, i dont see any "unbalanced" stuff like seige/oc's.
I think the problem lay in the people who are maybe better with aliens then marines.
My solution:<i>
Marines:
- Train/Go often with marines and not only play the aliens.
- Communicate more with your commander.
- Or even get a new better commander
- Or get a whole new team <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Aliens:
- Get into a group and not "OMG IM GONNA KILL THEM ALONE *MOHAHAHAH*"
- 75% of the team shall go Gorge and build rt/chambers in the beginning.
- If there is 6 on the team, 2 shall still be a gorge and build rt's/chambers etc.
- 3 shall go fade and protect the hive and destroy others rt's
- 1 shall save for hive or keep an eye on the gorges.</i>
[<b>EDIT</b>]:
<span style='color:red'>*WARNING*</span> Bad English
there is no problem at all. Except that the Marines have too much firepower and are really overpowered in early games against skulks!
In big public games it is even worser. Marines need less coordination, cause they can spread out everywere and when grouped up they are able to take out every hive location. The Aliens have big resource problems and won´t have any support from fades, first fade could appear at the 5-6 minute marke (good players with many kills) and that´s too late. The fades will fight against high upgraded marines and it´s really hard to keep such games balanced anymore.
In 6on6 fades appear in the right moment, but in big games the come too late.
Lowering the OC costs wouldn´t solve any of our problems. We would only encourage spammage with this, but not solve the balance issue itself. The games isn´t about fighting and building static defense, the players are the factor that should determine if you win or lose. So the skulk needs some beefing, to balance the early game again.
At any rate I agree that it's hard to judge a solution simply because NS doesn't have any sliding system to deal with numbers outside the "golden" 6v6.
I'm sorry? Siege SHOOTS THROUGH WALLS. If the marines are SIEGING which costs far more then Shotguns and GLs, all because <i>they can't live long enough to run in the hive and get their toes wet</i>, I think that means that they're DESPERATE. The power to shoot through a wall because you're too imcompetent to shoot it yourself should come with a stiff penalty. It takes, I think I calculated,
Res != skill. Siege, just like motion tracking and electricity, is a crutch for the marines to compensate for how much the marine PLAYERS can suck.
Secondly, you say 'don't let them'. Think about that. You know, I'd daresay marines can be just as stealthy, if not MORE stealthy then the aliens. I want you to tell me HOW you plan on finding that marine building a siege in a dark corner. You only have a 1-in-12 chance of having Scent of Fear, and most likely you have a battle to fight, not run around in circles in empty halls 'scouting for marines'.
It takes 1 marine 38 seconds minimum to build a 1-siege-cannon-base. Ironically, it still takes 38 seconds if he wants a phase gate too. Maybe give him a turret for protection from those skulks. What do you know! It still only takes 43 seconds to get that up.
Then, more marines come through, in most cases, the whole TEAM, and then they can all defend, and turrets act like Tank Traps for skulks and fades, and they can be fortified from anything short an onos until the sieges go up. And with 5 marines in the area, one siege cannon will only take 2 seconds to build.
It takes about 7 seconds for a single skulk who died to get back into action on a single hive without anyone else in the spawn queue. Of course, considering there's a couple seconds before you enter the spawn queue it's more like 9. In a 7 on 7 game (which is the size of the pub I play on, and it's got more regs then NS has clanners. Which is more then 2. But anyway), if there's a dead skulk and the marine building the phase gate kills you (which is horribly easy since 1 skulk vs. 1 marine heavilly favors the marine's chances. It is not uncommon to see a marine kill one or two skulks with his LMG, pistol, maybe a third with his knife), you get to sit in the spawn queue for up to 16 seconds. For up to 9 seconds, your team is down to 6 skulks. For up to 18, down to 5. Now let's say those two skulks were in battle. If we took meathead's idea that the aliens should always waste precious time and players looking at empty hallways, you're looking at only 3 skulks at a time attacking assets because some are dead, and some are running around doing nothing useful, on the off chance that the comm may do a siege. 5 skulks vs. what could be potentially up to 6 marines, who can get back to the battle faster then a skulk can spawn with a phase gate. Oh boy, that makes a lot of sense.
The only possible way to 'stop a siege' is if you have an onos, or you kill the lone marine before he builds the phase gate. Once he builds the phase gate your chances of surviving the attack go down significantly. Next thing you know there's shotguns falling on the other end of the phase gate and you get instagibbed while trying to take down the TF.
If your team has one or two skulks to spare to 'look around for marines' then your team is incompetent.
<span style='color:white'>Be nice.</span>
Add to this that few commanders in pubs are capable of carrying out two offensives at once, so if nothing has been happening for a while run around to your places and check for sneaky marines.
It all comes down to the fact that people feel like sieges cost way less than siege defense. In fact, you cant even compare the marine res costs to the alien ones because the marine has a tech tree while the aliens just drop/upgrade stuff.
If you can catch the marines at ANY point before their base is fully established and keep the pressure on, there is a good chance of decent alien players destroying that siege base. If you grossly fail to be vigilant until sieges are pounding your hive, you deserve to lose it, plain and simple.
For the record, I do agree that OCs are not worth the res you pay for them. Exceptfor large WoL's with several DCs, a single marine can take out as many OCs as he has ammo for. Theres a point on <i>every</i> OC where the marine can hit it but it cant hit back. Fix that problem and they'll be much more worth it, even if they only serve to make the commander drop several more medpacks.
It takes 1 marine 38 seconds minimum to build a 1-siege-cannon-base. Ironically, it still takes 38 seconds if he wants a phase gate too. Maybe give him a turret for protection from those skulks. What do you know! It still only takes 43 seconds to get that up.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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Eh? It'll definitely take him longer than that to get a Phasegate a TFac and a turret up. I don't know why you feel the need to garble your numbers into impractical setups - 1 siege alone is pointless, as is a single turret.
Sieging is indeed not unfair at all. If the opposing team is totally unable to cripple marine resflow, and marines manage to setup a PhaseGate, build siege, mine up the place and hand out a bunch of SGs along the way then meatshield is right - <b>you deserve it up the ****</b>.
As for scouting being impractical, thats the biggest load of nonsense I've ever heard. The amount of locations you have to patrol is <b>extremely</b> limited (you can see in a split second on the minimap if you need to go check on a hive because noones there), you spawn in those freekin' hives and once you have 2 of them you'll probably be using movement chambers - meaning most of the work is just one push of the use button, and listening for anything suspicious.
Add to that all the superbly mobile alien lifeforms (Lerk, Fade, Hive 2 Skulk), and theres no excuse except stupidity to not be covering your Hives at all times. These all outpower a lone marine severely, unless he's using valuable equipment - in which case only Fades blatantly outpower them, but anyone else can stall them and prevent them from building long enough to be useful.
If the Phasegate still does go up, thats not even close to a victory for marines - to the opposite, they now stand to lose alot of res investment in heavy weaponry on the other side if you wipe them out decisively (which at 2 Hives is very common if you've communicated with your team, and they've reacted). And unless your team has again been sleeping and letting them capture and hold countless nodes, even if marines manage to hold their phasegate they still need to afford countless medpacks and structures to siege you out - all the while reducing their effectiveness anywhere else on the map, making taking down those last few nodes they have even easier.
<span style='color:white'>Related post nuked, for good reasons.</span>
Honestly I think everything is fine as it is, though have noticed that once the marines have a pg, tfac, turret farm up the aliens usually lose the hive. Usually is like, say...7/10 times. The thing is every marine doesn't die at once so even one shotty rine holds off the fade for a few seconds while the other rines phase in. Of course in the worst case scenario the comm bacons (I <3 bacon) and the entire team phases in.
The Kharra throw their skulks and fades at the rines but they die, they nearly always die.
I wouldn't mind if OC's costed 9 and the tfac upgrade time was a little longer.
Ninja pg + tfac = dead hive mostly.
Aliens are somewhat underpowered, and it's not becuase of OCs.
*hint* Beef skulks; remove upgrade cost for skulks; lower Fade cost; slightly nerf blink *end hint*
Take 3 rines, give two shot guns. Have them attack the first hive and they will be a threat that requires more than a handfull of skulks to deal with. Until a higher lifeform shows up, those 3 rines, with out upgrades even, will turn waves of skulks into hamburger (i've seen this done, and done it several times). All those rines have to do is SIT out side the hive and not die to draw alot of attention. As skulks rush in and die, the comm sits back and collects rfk that 1) pays for the 2 shotties in as few as 7 skulks 2) be used for higher tech, medpacks, and mroe strucutres. If the skulks let up the rines can walk into the hive and do serious damage, but constanly attack only makes the marines stronger. Since everyone seem hard up to balance games around 6v6, that gives the rines 2 free men to go cuase trouble.
now i'm sure someone will spout that having the forces spread out will let the aliens attack one of the marine bases. Dead fking wrong becuase anything smaller than a fade cannot attack electrifide res nodes or elec tfs with a handfull of turrets.
So a fade finally hows up and kills those 3 marines at the first hive. Yay fade. problem is the marines have alot of free res and have drawn the attention of the entire alien team to a small area. So you know some alien nodes got wasted in that little offensive.
You repeat that again with upgraded marines and you can lockdown/kill any hive you want
The unbalanced part about sieges is they allow marines to use res to substitute man power. a single marine can build a siege base while the rest of the team attacks any other point on the map and BOTH attacks can be effective. You can argue till you are blue in the face which is more effective but hives do die to sieges and they do die to marines with shotties/gls.
Aliens can only attack with man power and have no way of subsituting man power with res.
As for prevention of a siege going up. That is not an argument. I can say preventing the marines from exiting the spawn will win the game and i would be right. But it is so improbable of that happening it is not a vaild game strategy. No alien team can stop every attempt at a siege build, and as long as marines can recycle thier bases they can try as much as they want.
I've seen some workable strats where the comm drops 4 IPs right off the bat and rushes the hive. The marines spawn so fast they dominate the aliens
The formula is: Max Chambers=(# of marines - 6)/3
You throw away the remainder. So, up to 8 marines, the aliens can't build any. 9-11, the aliens can build one. 12-14, the aliens can build 2. 15-16, the aliens can build 3.
The chamber is twice as big as an offense chamber (height AND radius wise) and has a small no-build radius around it. It has 3000hp, and costs 15 res to drop. The chamber must also be dropped within a certain radius of a hive.
Limiting building amounts and the idea of alien recycling is just to complex for the average pubber to understand. If there is a chance of a mistake, it's not worth implementing (exception would be dropping scs at hive 1).
I think turrets are fine for what they do, hold back lower life forms (lerk and below), while being ultimately useless to fades and onoses. Siege got a big boost since beta 3 I think when the upgrade used to cost more and the siege cannon itself costed more. I believe what can be done is weaken siege damage and lower hive hp just a bit. That way the other chambers can last a bit longer while direct hive attacks are still possible.
I believe the offense chamber should be changed. Rather than having it as a direct damage dealer, I'd rather see it slow marine moving speed and poison the marine so it makes it easier for a nearby alien to get the marine rather than the oc as a damage dealer itself. If you have WC3 you can get what I am saying by looking at the nerubian tower of the Undead. It is used as a support structure rather than a computer controlled death machine. If you don't believe the games Starcraft and Warcraft have to do anything with NS, sadly you are mistaken.
The problem with lowering gorge costs is that it maybe too easy to get the strong abilities of the gorge such as web, and bilebomb. I believe a dramatic change of gorge pricing such as 2 can cause bilebomb and web to become too strong. 5 is a reasonable price and as Schimmel said, it still allows 1 RT to be made in the beginning, the same pace it takes to get another hive, and gorge deaths would be less painful, because after all, gorge is just a pause phase while building something. It would also allow 2 ocs to be built right off the bat and lerk could be lowered to 25 as well, following the 50 (fade), 75 (onos) trend of using prices in terms of 25s.
*Off Topic* Today I played a server where the alien resource tower actually DEVOURS marines. It was totally hilarious. The resource tower would rotate until the big sack part was at your face and ZHOOOP, you were sucked in!
CC = 10k hp
Hive = 7K a piece, not to mention insta heal and gorges heal it for 63 per heal
Hives are generally tougher than CC