you need to start using headphones as well, and shut off the music its distracting. also, try to turn your screen gamma up so you can see an onos standing in veil marine start, that usually helps.
<!--QuoteBegin-MrBen+Mar 31 2005, 09:52 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MrBen @ Mar 31 2005, 09:52 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Skill isn't the issue, sensory is beatable on pubs because of lack of teamwork and co-ordination. Sensory is nearly unbeatable in clan matches because a good alien team doesn't need to work too hard to win, drop SCs at choke points straight away, skulks take upgrades, kill marines, chew rts, win. The only real way you can lose is if you screw up your early SC drop and get two hive lock downed.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> According to that statement (which could be completely correct), sensory chambers <u>CAN'T</u> be balanced for pubs and clan games. No matter how skilled the aliens are, before a pub game they can't plan who will do what, where each player will drop SC's. This, apparently, puts them at a noticeable disadvantage, even if it is a group of top clan players. So, marines will always have a better chance against sensory first in pubs than in clan games (since plenty of pub players here are saying it is balanced, and plenty of clan players are saying it isn't balanced).
That leaves us with two options. First, sensory first can be made to work with clan games by weakening it, which means that it will be unusable as a first chamber in pubs (due to lack of pregame planning, not lack of skill or teamwork). Second, the chamber can be completely redone, though I don't know what would be involved in doing that, or if the devs would be willing to do that when they are trying to finish up NS on HL1.
<!--QuoteBegin-Kwil+Mar 31 2005, 12:58 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kwil @ Mar 31 2005, 12:58 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-TranquilChaos+Mar 31 2005, 11:42 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (TranquilChaos @ Mar 31 2005, 11:42 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> If you can repeat something enough times with enough conviction and get enough people to follow in your stead, it automatically becomes true.
All together now!: <b><i>SCs are perfectly balanced, cloaking is a fun upgrade, SCs are perfectly balanced, cloaking is a fun upgrade.</i></b>
Hmm, I may need to go back and mess with font/size/color, we have a few strong disbelievers in this thread. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Sarcasm adds nothing. It could be just as easily said that some people are trying the same thing with the "We have adapted, you're just clueless" mantra. Perhaps being constructive might help more?
Personally, I do find cloaking to be a fun upgrade, whether on marine or alien. Then again, I don't really care whether I win or lose, but rather how much I get involved in the game, so maybe that's a difference. After all, if I wanted to feel like I was working, I'd actually work and make money while doing it.
At any rate, it's been a month, from what I've heard and what I can deduce from the changelog, I'm willing to concede that aliens are probably dominating in the clan-scene. Like buggy (buggeh? one of them, apologies for not remembering) though, I don't lay this at the feet of the sensory chamber at all, but rather at the way aliens were generally buffed and marines slightly nerfed in what was already a very balanced scene competitively.
This made one of the most fun chambers for aliens (c'mon.. who doesn't think being able to go "Boo!" is fun?) viable because aliens can survive with it. There might be some additional problems because clan games are decided so early (which I think is a problem in itself, but hey.. if that's the way they like to play..)
So, getting back to topic: The deal with sensory is that clan games are heavily weighted toward the early game, which is where aliens recieved their largest buffs and which is where the sensory chamber has the largest effect. Rather than change the weighting of the game, most of the folks protesting sensory would rather address the symptom they can easily see -- the sensory chamber. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Except for the whole part where useful evidence to support the overpowered SC first aliens position has been given, versus "I can beat SC first on pub x due to a complete lack of alien teamwork, sc is fine, gg."
Furthermore cloaking does a great deal to help bad skulks obtain good scores. Does this mean only bad players use cloaking? Hardly, although I'm sure some players dislike it enough to avoid using it to some degree, it doesn't mean that they aren't going to take advantage of this extremely powerful upgrade when it's available to them.
Also, the most fun chamber? Please share with me your assortment of fine drug products. SC is extremely frustrating in both pubs and matches. Marine rape or drawn out hive-locking affair, fun stuff indeed.
Also, large team sizes wouldn't change anything assuming alien teamwork remained at the same level. In fact, the slaughter would probably be even more brutal. Want to take a chokepoint? Go ahead, all you have to do is get through the gauntlet of 8 cloaked, focus, sof skulks. Not a problem at all.
"Fun" really shouldn't be part of any argument. I can count at least 7 things that aren't fun/are downright frustrating that are in NS right now. I'm more concerned about balance. Like, if they get DC, you'd normally get armor 1, and the round would be even. Or not. Whereas SC you get either armor 1 or observatory or whatever, but the round fails to be even nonetheless. Again, "or not".
Mostly I'd just like to know what you suggest using at the start of the game. Armor 1 won't make much of a difference because you have less than one second to push the trigger and aim at the skulk in(as the human brain takes .5 seconds to recieve any input). Observatory can only scan once, after which you have to wait a while. Plus you need to know where there are cloaked aliens BEFORE they bite your marines.
The solution to SC first? Res denial. Three SCs in the Hive room is not enough. Electrify your RTs to keep them under control. Hasty lockdowns of both hives to prevent MCs and DCs. March on alien nodes and take them down, denying the Gorges the res with which to drop SCs in effective places. Scan places where an SC would be of great tactical importance and destroy them where found.
Aliens need to play aggressively to keep control of the map with SCs. By putting up a great defense you can stop this. Mines won't cut it. Cloaked skulks are moving too slowly to NOT see your little mines everywhere. Electrification will own them, plain and simple.
One or two SG-toting Marines playing "res patrol" will make sure that no Fades take out your electrified nodes, especially when you back them up with Scans to foil ambushing Skulks.
How am I to know if idea is already being of suggested? Me read replies on current page before answer, yet people still be mad at me for repeat things already said. I guess me just hit button reply anyway and hopes for best of thing to come happen.
How go back am I to first page and read of all that is being of posted?
<!--QuoteBegin-comrade+Mar 31 2005, 12:51 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (comrade @ Mar 31 2005, 12:51 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I challenge any group of six non-competitive players to play ONE round where they are marine against a good clan who uses sensory and to try and win.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Oh please. It wouldn't matter what chamber was used, if you take 6 random people who have never played as a unit and ask them to compete against 6 people who have played as a unit then the random unit will fail in the vast majority of cases.
Sensory isn't the real issue here, pub/clan balance is.
Let's say we nuke cloaking... What then? The Sensory chamber will be tossed to the back of the line on public servers yet AGAIN, and we're back to DMS. How is that better than what we have now? Why do we want to undo all the work that Flayra has done to try to make all chambers equally viable?
It really doesn't matter what the debate is about (cloaking, fades etc) the end result is the same - there is a marked difference in how people play on public servers as compared to in competitive matches. That difference is why you can NEVER have balance in both pub play and clan play. It just ain't gonna happen in a game as complex as this when you don't have special modes for each unique style of play.
So we can argue the day away, but unless there is a change that allows for a different style of play on pub/clan servers we'll be having these same debates on another issue when the next patch drops.
You could do anything you wanted and there'd still be balance in public, this is highlighted quite nicely in this change. Why? Because 'balance' in a public boils down to luck, you cannot balance a game with as many random variables as public NS will have.
And you're right, 6 pubbers wouldn't stand a chance againist knife, but it'll be a nice demonstration to show the effectiveness of SC when used in a competitive enviroment.
We have feature 1 and two groups, group A and group B, who each try to use feature 1.
Group A uses it and wins 50% of the time when using feature 1.
Group B uses it and wins 100% of the time when using feature, regardless of what the opponants tries to do.
What I see in this thread is <i>the equivalent of</i> group A saying "feature 1 is not unbalanced, because I dont win all the time", while group B says "we know how to best exploit feature 1, and we never lose when we do". Group A then counters "well we cant use feature 1 well enough, so you're wrong".
Group B are too stupid to figure out how to counter SC. The strategies are out there, i hear the public commanders are winning a lot. What is your secret? It must be electric RTs and not medpacking. Dammit, how did I not think of this?!
Something ive been doing pretty effectively on 10V10 games with sensory first is Capping nodes while covering.....
Interestingly enough, two people can build an obs in less time than it takes to scan...
I find areas on the minimap where an obs can cover several locations... and scan cover while they make an obs in the middle of the map.... from there just keep leapfrogging forward, build nodes, make new obs, recycle old one to conserve res, and you get another scan with ur newly built one.....
I also like to WP the edge of the observatory range so my marines dont stray too far.....
Its been working pretty well, though you still need armor 1......
Yeah... marines will die, and ur progress is slowed a bit.... But the point is, you can gallivant around the map destroying hundreds of res in sensory chamber's, which sets the aliens back quite a bit, AND cap resnodes at the same time, while fully countering snesory upgrades(well not focus) and it only costs a few res per observatory, as long as you keep recycling as you advance
well, to combat the current situation of aliens being immensely overpowered, i suggest the marines get a mana pool to play with. me and a few others from highly competitive euro clans have been discussing this idea for a few months now. however, we always thought it would be a pipedream and far too silly to put it. but then the ns devs made the new sensory chambers and we then thought: "well, anything is possible".
how this will work:
1. with each death the marine team will gain one point of mana, the mana pool has a max of 100 to start with but can be upgraded. 2. to utilise the mana the marines have acquired the commander should drop a buildable "Arcane Sanctum" unit, this will work much like the Arms Lab. 3. once the Arcane Sanctum has been built, the commander can use res to research upgrades that use mana points.
Typical spells/upgrades could be "Hunter's Mark" that could improve the stealth detection range of the marines for a short period of time. "Powerword: Shield" that could give a single marine +200 armour for a short period of time and "Trueshot Aura" that gives the marines +5% attack damage.
all these spells would prove valuble against sensory strats, i recommend that team killing is turned off though, as this can be somewhat abused.
since playing ns combat, i have always thought ns would delve further into adding typical rpg features. i sense that now is the time to add more fresh and exciting elements to the game that has virtually been played the same for the past two years.
i hope a dev takes heed of this idea, as it would be really nice to play with. any feedback from players on this?
I think <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=90300' target='_blank'>this thread</a>, which I've been rather lazy about, had some good fixes for sensory <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif' /><!--endemo--> but to get to the point, I'm going to quote a rather heafty chunk on the current imbalances and possible solution.
<!--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-->Sensory Chambers Sensory chambers must be a headache for the developers. While sounding great in theory, paraphrased here is the design of SCs, “Instead of using brute force, it allows for calculated ambushes and superior intelligence before the battle happens allowing for a quick win in a fight,” SCs have never been implemented quite right in any version. Back in 1.0 this was attempted in a severely flawed attempt, in which the developers easily recognized. But they have been ever diligent in trying to find new ways to make the sensory chamber more powerful, without deviating from the original design intended for SCs. Still, due to the enormous problems inherent with sensory chambers in regards to playability, it’s fun factor, and of course, balance, SCs have received more changes than any other aspect of NS gameplay.
To start, the advantages of sensory chambers are multifold, unlike the other chambers. Whereas going with silence on movement chambers means you will miss on the celerity upgrade, and the ability to regenerate energy super fast only at chambers themselves, or going with carapace equates to excessive downtime that is negated by regen, sensory chambers in 3.0 final lack these problems. A skulk who has focus, and stays within the range of a sensory chamber has all three upgrades. He is cloaked at all times, knows exactly where marines are, and deals twice as much damage per bite. One would think from this description alone, “He is cloaked at all times, knows exactly where marines are, and deals twice as much damage per bite,” that the player is in combat, and has all three upgrades. But the reality is now marines face these same types of skulks in classic as well. I suppose the intent was that by giving free cloaking and scent of fear, sensory chambers would be more useful. The intent was solid, but the implementation was rather shoddy. Because of the advantages given by sensory chambers now, all aliens need to do is throw a sensory chamber down at each choke point in a map, and look at the advantages they have:
- No tactical coordination. Aliens are cloaked, and can ambush wherever they want. They don’t need to use hiding spots to ambush. - No need for teamwork communication, as long as sensory chambers are placed at chokepoints then marines will never go undetected. - The only area to focus on is winning the fight at hand, which is made incredibly simple due to the lack of the aforementioned problems aliens normally must deal with at all times.
No other chamber in the current version can provide such benefits. As such, is it a surprise when players exclaim that the new sensory chambers are overpowered to the point where the best teams of each country cannot pull off just one marine win? Sensory chambers, previously held at having some of the most disadvantages out of all the chambers, suddenly went to a chamber with the least disadvantages in one version change. Even when marines engage aliens in an SC field and use the ping of an observatory, they are still aliens with at least scent of fear, and plenty of aliens with focus and scent of fear.
Before, in previous versions the disadvantages of sensory chambers were matched by the disadvantages the marine team had to put up with, such as acquiring an early observatory and wasting resources that normally would have gone to upgrading the battle prowess of the marines. Marines who fought against sensory chambers had to invest in the several hard counters offered against sensory chambers, and also build in the field observatories to uncloak alien structures and creatures.
One is sure by now to exclaim that sensory chambers were never used in previous versions as much as other chambers because they were underpowered. In actuality, this is a falsehood spawned by players who could not understand how to correctly use the sensory chambers. The problem with sensory chambers was its exclusive nature it had when in fights. Ever since the advent of 2.0’s cloaking field, aliens with the sensory chambers needed to fight within the range of the sensory chamber in order to win their fights. The normal upgrades provided by the sensory chamber then did nothing to boost larger lifeforms, who became more and more about brute force, so aliens needed to use the sensory chambers to prevent expansion of marines until the second hive rolled around, which almost always marks the turning point of alien players asking for some offensive upgrades, so larger lifeforms could compete with marines as well as allow for some kind of reclamation of lost ground. Thus focus is born, offering twice the attack power at less than half the attack speed of the normal attack. Quite obviously this is a huge advantage, resulting in one or two hit kills, but most importantly, it exuberated the natural ability of aliens to perform hit and run. Focus meant that aliens who naturally rely on hit and run, because of the reasons said earlier, QUOTE The game revolves around the fact that aliens are weak and fast; enabling them to perform hit and runs, meanwhile marines are powerful, slow, and expend their firepower relatively quickly; promoting a mentality to destroy a target as fast as possible. This is easily seen in game, where if a fight goes on too long, aliens almost always win.
which means that a basic alien would normally allow for an alien to only hit once or perhaps twice is now able to hit two times in the span of one attack. In addition, because focus counts as two hits as one attack, this also nullifies medspam, a key feature of marine grunt-commander teamwork. Focus essentially takes the commander out of the fight, forcing marines to rely on each other for welding and marines who miss are punished much more harshly.
Even with focus in, players still were still using defense chambers first, and players reported difficulties in using the sensory chamber. A few actually reported that the sensory chamber was not fun to play against or with due to its overpowering nature in fights with cloaking. Still, the producers saw how sensory chambers were overall unused and therefore boosted them again, by boosting the power of the cloak upgrade and giving sensory chambers scent of fear. But did this really fix anything wrong with the sensory chamber? The sensory chamber now has the least disadvantages of all the chambers. Perhaps the problems with the sensory chamber of the previous version were incorrectly analyzed.
The time tested and rather strange method of determining who is winning at any given point in a clan game follows this general pattern since 2.0: If aliens hold their nodes in a 3 to 4 ratio they are out teching the marines, and if they have equal or more kills than the marine team then they are beating them in battle. Say the marines have 4 nodes, and aliens have 4. Aliens are out pacing the marines tech a much faster rate, marines would still be behind at 5 nodes, and 6 nodes would out tech them. (remember this is a clan match with only 6 aliens) Aliens tech much faster than marines do, but conversely it is much harder for aliens to construct nodes so it is balanced out in this regard. Imagine the marines had 4 nodes and 20 kills, and the aliens only have 2 nodes but have 30 kills. Even though the marines are out teching the aliens, the marines also must kill the aliens. At this point in the game it is fairly even, but if aliens take advantage of their kill difference they can use it to take down the nodes to keep the marine tech in line with theirs. These are general terms when it comes to winning, so next is intra-specific terms of losing and winning with chambers.
Providing that the other two conditions are met, to see where a strength lies in a chamber, all one must do is look at how the chamber wins a match. For example, DCs win with use of fades and usually a regen lerk, pushing back the marines long enough for the second hive to go up. MCs wins generally happen through the use of an early lerk, upgraded skulks, and a fade (or two, varies from strat to strat), and involve a rigorous system of MCs to quickly warp to a building hive to defend it. For SCs, the win occurs by denying marines access through a SC zone.
Losing with DCs and MCs are noticeable by a few factors. A DCs first team who are losing is usually marked when the fades are killed or due to the early weak game DCs provide, aliens had their nodes taken down so fast fades are unaffordable and are never sent out to do some damage. The loss of MCs first take places when early game aliens are denied from ever putting up a second hive with the use of static defenses, or the chambers are wiped off the map early on. When MCs are taken down then the advantage of being able to warp around to new hives is abolished, and this problem doesn’t exist as much with DCs as they are generally placed somewhere very safe, usually close to the hive (you can no longer build DCs on top of the hive :/ ). MCs need to be in the field for early use, such as warping back to the starting hive for quick healing, and even when placed in vents they are still extremely vulnerable. The specific losing point for SCs is only one factor; marines manage to get through a SC’s zone to breach the rest of the map, and lockdown the map. The only losing condition was for marines to break through the trench lines setup by the SCs, and once breached there is no turnaround. Since all combat advantages are located within the field of the SC, once marines get past the SCs in any force SC first aliens are woefully outmatched against their opponents, and are at an extreme disadvantage. The developers response to this, however, is even more perplexing; they simply boost the abilities within the field of a SC, bringing it to the point where marines get destroyed so quickly in these zones that they can no longer hope to get through these death traps. Naturally this is overpowered. In pub games, you have players who can use SCs with a high rate of success, and in clan games so far to my knowledge not one skilled team has lost going with SC first unless for some untimely error. For the alien team to win so consistently with SC first, there is something wrong because it is a statistical impossibility if it is assumed there is a 50-50-win ratio between teams. Because SCs specific requirement for losing is now nigh impossible to meet, it is no surprise that players are reporting an imbalance within the SC.
Remember the general terms for measuring the success of an alien or marine team; because the SC basically sets up an impassible wall for marines, this means the marines are being killed way beyond their allowed death rate, and if marines are dead then they aren’t killing the aliens nodes nor are they capping their own. The problem with SCs is that their zones have turned into something too unfair for early game marines to compete with.
Proposed Solution: The zone of the SC should be deadly and give advantages, but it should not be invincible. Furthermore the basic upgrades of the SC should be good enough on their own, and be boosted by the SC itself, but not reliant on the SC nor should it be overpowered by the SC. QUOTE - No tactical coordination. Aliens are cloaked, and can ambush wherever they want. They don’t need to use hiding spots to ambush. - No need for teamwork communication, as long as sensory chambers are placed at chokepoints then marines will never go undetected.
Part of what makes the SC so strong is that it gives both of these advantages at once. Obviously this can’t be the case; else you get a force field of claws and teeth for the marine team.
The best way to handle SCs is to spilt up the upgrades it offers. For example, unless an alien has scent of fear, he will be unable to take advantage of the scent of fear radius provided by the SC. And unless the alien has cloaking, he will not receive cloaking from the SC either. An alien who has focus has just that, focus.
In example, under the proposed system, imagine a skulk spawns in. His team has 3 SC’s setup around the map. He quickly upgrades scent of fear. He immediately sees one marine outside of the hive, from his own personal lv. 3 scent of fear upgrade, and also sees 2 other marines at the local double node, as there is a SC there and after he acquired the upgrade he got scent of fear bonuses from all SC’s on the map. The alien proceeds to tell the rest of his team about the marines’ location, and runs out of the hive to parasite the lone marine who is camping a hallway outside of the hiveroom. Meanwhile, two other skulks are close by double and run over after learning about the presence of these marines. Skulk A has cloaking and Skulk B has focus. Skulk A knows that since the marine is in range of an SC, he will be fully cloaked even while moving at full speed. Skulk B has no cloaking, and waits until Skulk A has started to engage the marines, upon which he jumps into battle as Skulk A draws fire.
The proposed system fixes the huge advantages currently present with the SC’s, also boosts the effectiveness of scent of fear, makes cloaking more unique, and slightly nerfs focus so that the upgrade is exclusive on the SC line. Why focus does not receive any benefits is because focus is the best upgrade in the game, but more on that later. In addition to everything else, SCs would truly be unique from other chambers, as the passive ability given by the chamber itself changes depending on what upgrade the alien chooses. This helps to make them all viable, by allowing them to have something over the other upgrade.
SCs would still cloak itself, cloak other structures, and also reveal enemy structures. But it would not cloak players unless they have the cloaking upgrade, and will not show locations of marines unless the alien has scent of fear.
Focus The best upgrade in the game. Focus composes two aliens into one. While generally the entire alien team will not take focus, they could and it would still be a good choice. Focus negates medspam with one hit kills, takes two hits to kill marines on average, provides an excellent early game advantage, forces marines to upgrade armor 1 as soon as possible, forces marines to carry welders on the field to repair armor after each fight in fear of the one hit kill, and compliments the hit and run nature of aliens. It turns the most effective playstyles into even more effective playstyles. It allows easy killings on upgraded marines, such as jetpacks and heavy armor. The only disadvantage to focus is that it slower at deconstruction than normal bites, because its actual attack speed decrease is more than 50%. However, this isn’t much of a disadvantage, because the real problem to killing structures is when marines protect them. Therefore, the best way to kill a structure is to kill the marines protecting them, which is exactly what focus does.
A skulk normally has a difficult time getting in more than one bite on a marine, but with focus he is gets a two for one special, and since he is a free unit with a one way ticket, the skulk with focus finds his role much easier to play. At two hives, a focus leaping skulk is a nightmare for marines. The gorge, sadly, is the only creature that does not receive a big benefit from focus, but this is due to the nature of the gorge, he is a builder, not a fighter. The lerk with focus is able to make dangerous fly-bys, and if the only upgrade with the fragile lerk is focus, he is playing a bit of a risk for 30 resources as this upgrade implies he will take part of combat. A lerk with focus or other focus aliens nearby are extremely lethal, as once spores wears down the marine’s armor he’s focus food. An onos with focus isn’t a bad choice, but since the onos is primarily the aliens siege unit, focus can place a detriment in leveling structures. Finally there is the focus fade, quite possibly the best upgrade in the game for the fade. The fade being the best hit and run unit logically benefits from the upgrade that deals the most up-front damage.
Because focus is an upgrade with awesome power, it did not get any boosts from the sensory chamber in my proposed solution above.
Scent of Fear Scent of fear in the current build got quite the major nerf. Previously scent of fear a unique upgrade and very useful in locating marines, but not as useful as other upgrades. Even though scent of fear was sub-par in comparison with other upgrades, for some reason scent of fear was reduced in effectiveness when it was a given as a freebie on SC’s. Not only does this make the SC zone even more deadly, but also it makes scent of fear as a normal upgrade redundant. Even still, scent of fear is still useful for the lerk, gorge, and onos. For the fade, focus is the obvious choice, and for the skulk cloaking or focus is more desirable in the job of killing marines. The onos can take scent of fear because focus lowers his building smashing power, and cloaking on the onos is useless. Finally the gorge is most concerned with hiding and living to build, so focus isn’t very useful there, and cloaking can hide the gorge, but seeing them coming can be preferable to those who like to be the non-confrontational type of gorge.
Scent of fear would be a much more powerful and unique upgrade to the aliens if it were linked to the SCs on the field, and also would serve as a dissimilar counter to motion tracking.
Cloaking The most frustrating upgrade to play against, it is also the most specialized upgrade, with entire buildings, tactics, and upgrades built around countering this one ability. Until marines acquire the hard counters necessary to overcome cloaking, cloaking is practically unbeatable by any normal means from a player, such as outmaneuvering the alien, or having such superior aim the alien is unable to kill the marine in time. Even medspam is difficult to time, as generally cloaked ambushes are not expected, and unless the commander has his eyes on a marine who is suddenly attacked, he will not be able to respond in time.
Cloaking is indeed a specialized tool, with only real benefits to the skulk and gorge. Since cloaking is lost with any attack, a lerk who is always sporing or using umbra, the fade who always must blink sees no use in cloak, and the onos is just too big to hide. The lerk also has much to gain from scent of fear or focus, boosting its placement of spores or battle ability, and fades gain so much from focus its doubtful to ever see another upgrade preferred for a sensory fade. Skulks are most effective when ambushing, and so cloaking is a natural choice. Gorges who prefer to hide from marines and act as support for skulks who need it by safely remaining cloaked until skulks need him also see use in cloaking.
It would be interesting to see if cloaking could be made more useful for all classes by allowing them to use slot 2 attacks and not lose their cloak. This means cloaking-blinking fades, or spores that do not reveal the lerk. It probably would not boost cloaking in any significant fashion, but until a test is done, which is unlikely, there is no real way to tell.
As it currently stands, cloaking fits into the game, but places much more emphasis on strategy and less on tactics. NS being a hybrid of RTS-FPS, those who favor the FPS will naturally hate cloaking, and those who favor the RTS will love it. Still, regardless of any opinion, cloaking has to stay because it matches the developer’s intent with SCs.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh, and to reply to that "CLANNERS DON'T ADAPT THEY ARE NEWB 'E' BUT ADAPTING PUB COMMS WHO DON'T MAKE UP RULES LIKE IGNORAMUSOSOSOS R TEH WIN-"
<!--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--> QUOTE <i>Honestly, not as an insult, clanners are not that quick to adapt. They find a strat that works, and practice it.</i>
this argument fails to realize that the very reason clanners are clanners, and are skilled at what they do is because they adapt the fastest. They do not find a strategy that works; they find the strategy with the most destructive and overpowering value possible, and perfect it.
<i>That's possibly the driving concept behind competative play. Finding the quirks and using them to your advantage.</i> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I dont have a problem with cloaking at all in an NS game. Using SC early in a game has its advantages if done right, but can also be crippling if every team mate doesn't do their part (getting second hive up, etc). Marines have a number of ways of countering early SC (armor, mt, blah blah blah) so I don't see anything wrong with cloaking in a game of NS.
What I do have a problem with however are people who only know how to cloak, and combat brings a lot of these people. Instead of using their res, communicating, or aiding their team in any way they spend the majority of the game hiding in a corner waiting for a free kill. It is very frustrating to be on a team with these kind of people. Not that I hate all n00bs but I do get annoyed by the ones who don't make any attempt at trying to understand the gameplay.
Cloak in combat I do have a problem with. When I play combat now it seems like no one relies on their skill at all but instead their ability to hold the shift key. Oh well. When people cloak, for me at least, it just makes them easier to kill. The frustrating part, however, is when no one else on your team can kill a cloaked skulk and you find that you're the only one with more kills than deaths...
<!--QuoteBegin-crono!+Mar 31 2005, 03:38 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (crono! @ Mar 31 2005, 03:38 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->well, to combat the current situation of aliens being immensely overpowered, i suggest the marines get a mana pool to play with. me and a few others from highly competitive euro clans have been discussing this idea for a few months now. however, we always thought it would be a pipedream and far too silly to put it. but then the ns devs made the new sensory chambers and we then thought: "well, anything is possible".
how this will work:
1. with each death the marine team will gain one point of mana, the mana pool has a max of 100 to start with but can be upgraded. 2. to utilise the mana the marines have acquired the commander should drop a buildable "Arcane Sanctum" unit, this will work much like the Arms Lab. 3. once the Arcane Sanctum has been built, the commander can use res to research upgrades that use mana points.
Typical spells/upgrades could be "Hunter's Mark" that could improve the stealth detection range of the marines for a short period of time. "Powerword: Shield" that could give a single marine +200 armour for a short period of time and "Trueshot Aura" that gives the marines +5% attack damage.
all these spells would prove valuble against sensory strats, i recommend that team killing is turned off though, as this can be somewhat abused.
since playing ns combat, i have always thought ns would delve further into adding typical rpg features. i sense that now is the time to add more fresh and exciting elements to the game that has virtually been played the same for the past two years.
i hope a dev takes heed of this idea, as it would be really nice to play with. any feedback from players on this?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> april foolsday is tomorrow?!
This topic has complete gotten out of hand. Seriously.
I didn't start this topic to say that sensory is a balanced chamber (it is not, by all means, I'd have to side with the clanners on this one), but the fact that cloaking is not "fun".
I just wanted to say that cloaking by itself, isn't a "boring" way to play.
As for sensory balance, I agree that it is totally overpowered, but it's kind of hard to think how you'd work it.
I think decreasing AA cost to 25 and lowering research time to 2:20 while increasing energy production from the obs by 50% would be able to offset the balance disparity in both clan and pub play.
Edit:
Though I do admit it's a lot easier to counter sensory in pub play due to its inherently disorganized gameplay on the alien side.
<!--QuoteBegin-nAAbj+Mar 31 2005, 03:52 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (nAAbj @ Mar 31 2005, 03:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-crono!+Mar 31 2005, 03:38 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (crono! @ Mar 31 2005, 03:38 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->well, to combat the current situation of aliens being immensely overpowered, i suggest the marines get a mana pool to play with. me and a few others from highly competitive euro clans have been discussing this idea for a few months now. however, we always thought it would be a pipedream and far too silly to put it. but then the ns devs made the new sensory chambers and we then thought: "well, anything is possible".
how this will work:
1. with each death the marine team will gain one point of mana, the mana pool has a max of 100 to start with but can be upgraded. 2. to utilise the mana the marines have acquired the commander should drop a buildable "Arcane Sanctum" unit, this will work much like the Arms Lab. 3. once the Arcane Sanctum has been built, the commander can use res to research upgrades that use mana points.
Typical spells/upgrades could be "Hunter's Mark" that could improve the stealth detection range of the marines for a short period of time. "Powerword: Shield" that could give a single marine +200 armour for a short period of time and "Trueshot Aura" that gives the marines +5% attack damage.
all these spells would prove valuble against sensory strats, i recommend that team killing is turned off though, as this can be somewhat abused.
since playing ns combat, i have always thought ns would delve further into adding typical rpg features. i sense that now is the time to add more fresh and exciting elements to the game that has virtually been played the same for the past two years.
i hope a dev takes heed of this idea, as it would be really nice to play with. any feedback from players on this?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> april foolsday is tomorrow?! <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> nope, not at all. why do you think i don't play ns? why do you think i see wzza every bloody day riding on his mount through ironforge?
because we're playing wow instead. what does wow have? MANA POOL. correct!
and for your info, me, evilness and moomin discussed this in detail months ago.
<!--QuoteBegin-tjosan+Mar 31 2005, 02:05 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (tjosan @ Mar 31 2005, 02:05 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> We have feature 1 and two groups, group A and group B, who each try to use feature 1.
Group A uses it and wins 50% of the time when using feature 1.
Group B uses it and wins 100% of the time when using feature, regardless of what the opponants tries to do.
What I see in this thread is <i>the equivalent of</i> group A saying "feature 1 is not unbalanced, because I dont win all the time", while group B says "we know how to best exploit feature 1, and we never lose when we do". Group A then counters "well we cant use feature 1 well enough, so you're wrong".
Now, isnt this a bit absurd?
[<i>Edit in italic</i>] <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You missed something I think is key:
There are more features than Feature 1. I have yet to hear if group B has similar troubles dealing with Features 2 and 3.
My hypothesis still remains on the idea that no matter what the first chamber, aliens will still dominate. From what I hear, this was still happening at least with movement chambers. I don't know if clans are playing much with the other chambers right now though.
The question to ask is "Is it specifically feature 1, or is it just that because feature 1 was so lousy before, the change is the most dramatic, but really it's something external to this particular feature?"
If the clanners can say "No, with MCs or DCs first everythings fine and the game's balanced" I'm happy to shut up about it. Personally, I'll still think the root cause is the clan-game's emphasis on the early game and it'd be better to address *that* than a particular chamber, but as I said, if that's the way they want to play, I'm not going to question it. However, in that case, I will swing around to Savant's idea of needing more separation between tourney mode and regular mode.
<!--QuoteBegin-crono!+Mar 31 2005, 04:05 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (crono! @ Mar 31 2005, 04:05 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> and for your info, me, evilness and moomin discussed this in detail months ago. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> This is correct.
<!--QuoteBegin-Kwil+Mar 31 2005, 04:12 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kwil @ Mar 31 2005, 04:12 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-tjosan+Mar 31 2005, 02:05 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (tjosan @ Mar 31 2005, 02:05 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> We have feature 1 and two groups, group A and group B, who each try to use feature 1.
Group A uses it and wins 50% of the time when using feature 1.
Group B uses it and wins 100% of the time when using feature, regardless of what the opponants tries to do.
What I see in this thread is <i>the equivalent of</i> group A saying "feature 1 is not unbalanced, because I dont win all the time", while group B says "we know how to best exploit feature 1, and we never lose when we do". Group A then counters "well we cant use feature 1 well enough, so you're wrong".
Now, isnt this a bit absurd?
[<i>Edit in italic</i>] <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You missed something I think is key:
There are more features than Feature 1. I have yet to hear if group B has similar troubles dealing with Features 2 and 3.
My hypothesis still remains on the idea that no matter what the first chamber, aliens will still dominate. From what I hear, this was still happening at least with movement chambers. I don't know if clans are playing much with the other chambers right now though.
The question to ask is "Is it specifically feature 1, or is it just that because feature 1 was so lousy before, the change is the most dramatic, but really it's something external to this particular feature?" <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I didnt miss it, I chose to omit that part. My point wasnt to talk about feature 1 or balance or whatever, but rather to highlight the absurdity of alot of responses in this thread.
<!--QuoteBegin-tjosan+Mar 31 2005, 03:22 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (tjosan @ Mar 31 2005, 03:22 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I didnt miss it, I chose to omit that part. My point wasnt to talk about feature 1 or balance or whatever, but rather to highlight the absurdity of alot of responses in this thread. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> But are they really that absurd? If it's not Feature 1 that's the actual problem, then the group saying "Well we lose sometimes so it's not that" bears investigating. After all, presumably the aliens aren't the only ones who are unskilled on pubs.
<!--QuoteBegin-Kwil+Mar 31 2005, 04:28 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kwil @ Mar 31 2005, 04:28 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-tjosan+Mar 31 2005, 03:22 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (tjosan @ Mar 31 2005, 03:22 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I didnt miss it, I chose to omit that part. My point wasnt to talk about feature 1 or balance or whatever, but rather to highlight the absurdity of alot of responses in this thread. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> But are they really that absurd? If it's not Feature 1 that's the actual problem, then the group saying "Well we lose sometimes so it's not that" bears investigating. After all, presumably the aliens aren't the only ones who are unskilled on pubs. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> But since the same pattern of replies repeats themselves regardless of whether it is feature 1, or feature 2, or the overall Game, I dont know if I can agree with you.
Or pretend that feature 1 is the alien team in general. The pattern of replies still look like that.
Now, your point would have been valid had this not been the case.
Alcapwn"War is the science of destruction" - John AbbotJoin Date: 2003-06-21Member: 17590Members
<!--QuoteBegin-comrade+Mar 30 2005, 08:08 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (comrade @ Mar 30 2005, 08:08 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> also, are you crazy? focus fades are insane <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Nope. If you travel in groups of 3 or more, youll see how the focus fade kinda sucks. The extra time to attack 1 marine makes it easier for the other Rines too unload the lead. Not to mention by the time the 1st fade pops up, you should have armor1. And theres always shottys... <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::fade::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/fade.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='fade.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Alcapwn"War is the science of destruction" - John AbbotJoin Date: 2003-06-21Member: 17590Members
<!--QuoteBegin-DuoGodOfDeath+Mar 31 2005, 06:39 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DuoGodOfDeath @ Mar 31 2005, 06:39 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Focus fades are very powerful and 3 Marines with armor 1 are no match. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> <b>At least</b> 3 marines and armor 1. Usually more, if your planning on marching to a hive location.
Comments
According to that statement (which could be completely correct), sensory chambers <u>CAN'T</u> be balanced for pubs and clan games. No matter how skilled the aliens are, before a pub game they can't plan who will do what, where each player will drop SC's. This, apparently, puts them at a noticeable disadvantage, even if it is a group of top clan players. So, marines will always have a better chance against sensory first in pubs than in clan games (since plenty of pub players here are saying it is balanced, and plenty of clan players are saying it isn't balanced).
That leaves us with two options. First, sensory first can be made to work with clan games by weakening it, which means that it will be unusable as a first chamber in pubs (due to lack of pregame planning, not lack of skill or teamwork). Second, the chamber can be completely redone, though I don't know what would be involved in doing that, or if the devs would be willing to do that when they are trying to finish up NS on HL1.
All together now!:
<b><i>SCs are perfectly balanced, cloaking is a fun upgrade, SCs are perfectly balanced, cloaking is a fun upgrade.</i></b>
Hmm, I may need to go back and mess with font/size/color, we have a few strong disbelievers in this thread. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sarcasm adds nothing. It could be just as easily said that some people are trying the same thing with the "We have adapted, you're just clueless" mantra. Perhaps being constructive might help more?
Personally, I do find cloaking to be a fun upgrade, whether on marine or alien. Then again, I don't really care whether I win or lose, but rather how much I get involved in the game, so maybe that's a difference. After all, if I wanted to feel like I was working, I'd actually work and make money while doing it.
At any rate, it's been a month, from what I've heard and what I can deduce from the changelog, I'm willing to concede that aliens are probably dominating in the clan-scene. Like buggy (buggeh? one of them, apologies for not remembering) though, I don't lay this at the feet of the sensory chamber at all, but rather at the way aliens were generally buffed and marines slightly nerfed in what was already a very balanced scene competitively.
This made one of the most fun chambers for aliens (c'mon.. who doesn't think being able to go "Boo!" is fun?) viable because aliens can survive with it. There might be some additional problems because clan games are decided so early (which I think is a problem in itself, but hey.. if that's the way they like to play..)
So, getting back to topic: The deal with sensory is that clan games are heavily weighted toward the early game, which is where aliens recieved their largest buffs and which is where the sensory chamber has the largest effect. Rather than change the weighting of the game, most of the folks protesting sensory would rather address the symptom they can easily see -- the sensory chamber. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Except for the whole part where useful evidence to support the overpowered SC first aliens position has been given, versus "I can beat SC first on pub x due to a complete lack of alien teamwork, sc is fine, gg."
Furthermore cloaking does a great deal to help bad skulks obtain good scores. Does this mean only bad players use cloaking? Hardly, although I'm sure some players dislike it enough to avoid using it to some degree, it doesn't mean that they aren't going to take advantage of this extremely powerful upgrade when it's available to them.
Also, the most fun chamber? Please share with me your assortment of fine drug products. SC is extremely frustrating in both pubs and matches. Marine rape or drawn out hive-locking affair, fun stuff indeed.
Also, large team sizes wouldn't change anything assuming alien teamwork remained at the same level. In fact, the slaughter would probably be even more brutal. Want to take a chokepoint? Go ahead, all you have to do is get through the gauntlet of 8 cloaked, focus, sof skulks. Not a problem at all.
Mostly I'd just like to know what you suggest using at the start of the game. Armor 1 won't make much of a difference because you have less than one second to push the trigger and aim at the skulk in(as the human brain takes .5 seconds to recieve any input). Observatory can only scan once, after which you have to wait a while. Plus you need to know where there are cloaked aliens BEFORE they bite your marines.
Res denial.
Three SCs in the Hive room is not enough.
Electrify your RTs to keep them under control.
Hasty lockdowns of both hives to prevent MCs and DCs.
March on alien nodes and take them down, denying the Gorges the res with which to drop SCs in effective places.
Scan places where an SC would be of great tactical importance and destroy them where found.
Aliens need to play aggressively to keep control of the map with SCs. By putting up a great defense you can stop this. Mines won't cut it. Cloaked skulks are moving too slowly to NOT see your little mines everywhere. Electrification will own them, plain and simple.
One or two SG-toting Marines playing "res patrol" will make sure that no Fades take out your electrified nodes, especially when you back them up with Scans to foil ambushing Skulks.
How go back am I to first page and read of all that is being of posted?
Oh please. It wouldn't matter what chamber was used, if you take 6 random people who have never played as a unit and ask them to compete against 6 people who have played as a unit then the random unit will fail in the vast majority of cases.
Sensory isn't the real issue here, pub/clan balance is.
Let's say we nuke cloaking... What then? The Sensory chamber will be tossed to the back of the line on public servers yet AGAIN, and we're back to DMS. How is that better than what we have now? Why do we want to undo all the work that Flayra has done to try to make all chambers equally viable?
It really doesn't matter what the debate is about (cloaking, fades etc) the end result is the same - there is a marked difference in how people play on public servers as compared to in competitive matches. That difference is why you can NEVER have balance in both pub play and clan play. It just ain't gonna happen in a game as complex as this when you don't have special modes for each unique style of play.
So we can argue the day away, but unless there is a change that allows for a different style of play on pub/clan servers we'll be having these same debates on another issue when the next patch drops.
Regards,
Savant
And you're right, 6 pubbers wouldn't stand a chance againist knife, but it'll be a nice demonstration to show the effectiveness of SC when used in a competitive enviroment.
Oh what do I care, I already stopped playing.
Group A uses it and wins 50% of the time when using feature 1.
Group B uses it and wins 100% of the time when using feature, regardless of what the opponants tries to do.
What I see in this thread is <i>the equivalent of</i> group A saying "feature 1 is not unbalanced, because I dont win all the time", while group B says "we know how to best exploit feature 1, and we never lose when we do". Group A then counters "well we cant use feature 1 well enough, so you're wrong".
Now, isnt this a bit absurd?
[<i>Edit in italic</i>]
Group B are too stupid to figure out how to counter SC. The strategies are out there, i hear the public commanders are winning a lot. What is your secret? It must be electric RTs and not medpacking. Dammit, how did I not think of this?!
Interestingly enough, two people can build an obs in less time than it takes to scan...
I find areas on the minimap where an obs can cover several locations... and scan cover while they make an obs in the middle of the map.... from there just keep leapfrogging forward, build nodes, make new obs, recycle old one to conserve res, and you get another scan with ur newly built one.....
I also like to WP the edge of the observatory range so my marines dont stray too far.....
Its been working pretty well, though you still need armor 1......
Yeah... marines will die, and ur progress is slowed a bit.... But the point is, you can gallivant around the map destroying hundreds of res in sensory chamber's, which sets the aliens back quite a bit, AND cap resnodes at the same time, while fully countering snesory upgrades(well not focus) and it only costs a few res per observatory, as long as you keep recycling as you advance
~Jason
Basically you have two base builders/guards.
And 7 people who go out in a GROUP to build RTs.
NOW IT IS PARAMOUNT THAT THE MARINES HAVE TEAMWORK!
Then you build an observatory at each RT, and then after the obs you build the rt.
VERY IMPORTANT: 2 build and 5 cover.
And the commander have to SCAN WHILE THE OBS IS BEING BUILT!
This way you get the nodes.
Nifty, eh?
how this will work:
1. with each death the marine team will gain one point of mana, the mana pool has a max of 100 to start with but can be upgraded.
2. to utilise the mana the marines have acquired the commander should drop a buildable "Arcane Sanctum" unit, this will work much like the Arms Lab.
3. once the Arcane Sanctum has been built, the commander can use res to research upgrades that use mana points.
Typical spells/upgrades could be "Hunter's Mark" that could improve the stealth detection range of the marines for a short period of time. "Powerword: Shield" that could give a single marine +200 armour for a short period of time and "Trueshot Aura" that gives the marines +5% attack damage.
all these spells would prove valuble against sensory strats, i recommend that team killing is turned off though, as this can be somewhat abused.
since playing ns combat, i have always thought ns would delve further into adding typical rpg features. i sense that now is the time to add more fresh and exciting elements to the game that has virtually been played the same for the past two years.
i hope a dev takes heed of this idea, as it would be really nice to play with. any feedback from players on this?
<!--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-->Sensory Chambers
Sensory chambers must be a headache for the developers. While sounding great in theory, paraphrased here is the design of SCs, “Instead of using brute force, it allows for calculated ambushes and superior intelligence before the battle happens allowing for a quick win in a fight,” SCs have never been implemented quite right in any version. Back in 1.0 this was attempted in a severely flawed attempt, in which the developers easily recognized. But they have been ever diligent in trying to find new ways to make the sensory chamber more powerful, without deviating from the original design intended for SCs. Still, due to the enormous problems inherent with sensory chambers in regards to playability, it’s fun factor, and of course, balance, SCs have received more changes than any other aspect of NS gameplay.
To start, the advantages of sensory chambers are multifold, unlike the other chambers. Whereas going with silence on movement chambers means you will miss on the celerity upgrade, and the ability to regenerate energy super fast only at chambers themselves, or going with carapace equates to excessive downtime that is negated by regen, sensory chambers in 3.0 final lack these problems. A skulk who has focus, and stays within the range of a sensory chamber has all three upgrades. He is cloaked at all times, knows exactly where marines are, and deals twice as much damage per bite. One would think from this description alone,
“He is cloaked at all times, knows exactly where marines are, and deals twice as much damage per bite,” that the player is in combat, and has all three upgrades. But the reality is now marines face these same types of skulks in classic as well. I suppose the intent was that by giving free cloaking and scent of fear, sensory chambers would be more useful. The intent was solid, but the implementation was rather shoddy. Because of the advantages given by sensory chambers now, all aliens need to do is throw a sensory chamber down at each choke point in a map, and look at the advantages they have:
- No tactical coordination. Aliens are cloaked, and can ambush wherever they want. They don’t need to use hiding spots to ambush.
- No need for teamwork communication, as long as sensory chambers are placed at chokepoints then marines will never go undetected.
- The only area to focus on is winning the fight at hand, which is made incredibly simple due to the lack of the aforementioned problems aliens normally must deal with at all times.
No other chamber in the current version can provide such benefits. As such, is it a surprise when players exclaim that the new sensory chambers are overpowered to the point where the best teams of each country cannot pull off just one marine win? Sensory chambers, previously held at having some of the most disadvantages out of all the chambers, suddenly went to a chamber with the least disadvantages in one version change. Even when marines engage aliens in an SC field and use the ping of an observatory, they are still aliens with at least scent of fear, and plenty of aliens with focus and scent of fear.
Before, in previous versions the disadvantages of sensory chambers were matched by the disadvantages the marine team had to put up with, such as acquiring an early observatory and wasting resources that normally would have gone to upgrading the battle prowess of the marines. Marines who fought against sensory chambers had to invest in the several hard counters offered against sensory chambers, and also build in the field observatories to uncloak alien structures and creatures.
One is sure by now to exclaim that sensory chambers were never used in previous versions as much as other chambers because they were underpowered. In actuality, this is a falsehood spawned by players who could not understand how to correctly use the sensory chambers. The problem with sensory chambers was its exclusive nature it had when in fights. Ever since the advent of 2.0’s cloaking field, aliens with the sensory chambers needed to fight within the range of the sensory chamber in order to win their fights. The normal upgrades provided by the sensory chamber then did nothing to boost larger lifeforms, who became more and more about brute force, so aliens needed to use the sensory chambers to prevent expansion of marines until the second hive rolled around, which almost always marks the turning point of alien players asking for some offensive upgrades, so larger lifeforms could compete with marines as well as allow for some kind of reclamation of lost ground.
Thus focus is born, offering twice the attack power at less than half the attack speed of the normal attack. Quite obviously this is a huge advantage, resulting in one or two hit kills, but most importantly, it exuberated the natural ability of aliens to perform hit and run. Focus meant that aliens who naturally rely on hit and run, because of the reasons said earlier,
QUOTE
The game revolves around the fact that aliens are weak and fast; enabling them to perform hit and runs, meanwhile marines are powerful, slow, and expend their firepower relatively quickly; promoting a mentality to destroy a target as fast as possible. This is easily seen in game, where if a fight goes on too long, aliens almost always win.
which means that a basic alien would normally allow for an alien to only hit once or perhaps twice is now able to hit two times in the span of one attack. In addition, because focus counts as two hits as one attack, this also nullifies medspam, a key feature of marine grunt-commander teamwork. Focus essentially takes the commander out of the fight, forcing marines to rely on each other for welding and marines who miss are punished much more harshly.
Even with focus in, players still were still using defense chambers first, and players reported difficulties in using the sensory chamber. A few actually reported that the sensory chamber was not fun to play against or with due to its overpowering nature in fights with cloaking. Still, the producers saw how sensory chambers were overall unused and therefore boosted them again, by boosting the power of the cloak upgrade and giving sensory chambers scent of fear. But did this really fix anything wrong with the sensory chamber? The sensory chamber now has the least disadvantages of all the chambers. Perhaps the problems with the sensory chamber of the previous version were incorrectly analyzed.
The time tested and rather strange method of determining who is winning at any given point in a clan game follows this general pattern since 2.0: If aliens hold their nodes in a 3 to 4 ratio they are out teching the marines, and if they have equal or more kills than the marine team then they are beating them in battle. Say the marines have 4 nodes, and aliens have 4. Aliens are out pacing the marines tech a much faster rate, marines would still be behind at 5 nodes, and 6 nodes would out tech them. (remember this is a clan match with only 6 aliens) Aliens tech much faster than marines do, but conversely it is much harder for aliens to construct nodes so it is balanced out in this regard. Imagine the marines had 4 nodes and 20 kills, and the aliens only have 2 nodes but have 30 kills. Even though the marines are out teching the aliens, the marines also must kill the aliens. At this point in the game it is fairly even, but if aliens take advantage of their kill difference they can use it to take down the nodes to keep the marine tech in line with theirs. These are general terms when it comes to winning, so next is intra-specific terms of losing and winning with chambers.
Providing that the other two conditions are met, to see where a strength lies in a chamber, all one must do is look at how the chamber wins a match. For example, DCs win with use of fades and usually a regen lerk, pushing back the marines long enough for the second hive to go up. MCs wins generally happen through the use of an early lerk, upgraded skulks, and a fade (or two, varies from strat to strat), and involve a rigorous system of MCs to quickly warp to a building hive to defend it. For SCs, the win occurs by denying marines access through a SC zone.
Losing with DCs and MCs are noticeable by a few factors. A DCs first team who are losing is usually marked when the fades are killed or due to the early weak game DCs provide, aliens had their nodes taken down so fast fades are unaffordable and are never sent out to do some damage. The loss of MCs first take places when early game aliens are denied from ever putting up a second hive with the use of static defenses, or the chambers are wiped off the map early on. When MCs are taken down then the advantage of being able to warp around to new hives is abolished, and this problem doesn’t exist as much with DCs as they are generally placed somewhere very safe, usually close to the hive (you can no longer build DCs on top of the hive :/ ). MCs need to be in the field for early use, such as warping back to the starting hive for quick healing, and even when placed in vents they are still extremely vulnerable. The specific losing point for SCs is only one factor; marines manage to get through a SC’s zone to breach the rest of the map, and lockdown the map. The only losing condition was for marines to break through the trench lines setup by the SCs, and once breached there is no turnaround. Since all combat advantages are located within the field of the SC, once marines get past the SCs in any force SC first aliens are woefully outmatched against their opponents, and are at an extreme disadvantage. The developers response to this, however, is even more perplexing; they simply boost the abilities within the field of a SC, bringing it to the point where marines get destroyed so quickly in these zones that they can no longer hope to get through these death traps. Naturally this is overpowered. In pub games, you have players who can use SCs with a high rate of success, and in clan games so far to my knowledge not one skilled team has lost going with SC first unless for some untimely error. For the alien team to win so consistently with SC first, there is something wrong because it is a statistical impossibility if it is assumed there is a 50-50-win ratio between teams.
Because SCs specific requirement for losing is now nigh impossible to meet, it is no surprise that players are reporting an imbalance within the SC.
Remember the general terms for measuring the success of an alien or marine team; because the SC basically sets up an impassible wall for marines, this means the marines are being killed way beyond their allowed death rate, and if marines are dead then they aren’t killing the aliens nodes nor are they capping their own. The problem with SCs is that their zones have turned into something too unfair for early game marines to compete with.
Proposed Solution: The zone of the SC should be deadly and give advantages, but it should not be invincible. Furthermore the basic upgrades of the SC should be good enough on their own, and be boosted by the SC itself, but not reliant on the SC nor should it be overpowered by the SC.
QUOTE
- No tactical coordination. Aliens are cloaked, and can ambush wherever they want. They don’t need to use hiding spots to ambush.
- No need for teamwork communication, as long as sensory chambers are placed at chokepoints then marines will never go undetected.
Part of what makes the SC so strong is that it gives both of these advantages at once. Obviously this can’t be the case; else you get a force field of claws and teeth for the marine team.
The best way to handle SCs is to spilt up the upgrades it offers. For example, unless an alien has scent of fear, he will be unable to take advantage of the scent of fear radius provided by the SC. And unless the alien has cloaking, he will not receive cloaking from the SC either. An alien who has focus has just that, focus.
In example, under the proposed system, imagine a skulk spawns in. His team has 3 SC’s setup around the map. He quickly upgrades scent of fear. He immediately sees one marine outside of the hive, from his own personal lv. 3 scent of fear upgrade, and also sees 2 other marines at the local double node, as there is a SC there and after he acquired the upgrade he got scent of fear bonuses from all SC’s on the map. The alien proceeds to tell the rest of his team about the marines’ location, and runs out of the hive to parasite the lone marine who is camping a hallway outside of the hiveroom. Meanwhile, two other skulks are close by double and run over after learning about the presence of these marines. Skulk A has cloaking and Skulk B has focus. Skulk A knows that since the marine is in range of an SC, he will be fully cloaked even while moving at full speed. Skulk B has no cloaking, and waits until Skulk A has started to engage the marines, upon which he jumps into battle as Skulk A draws fire.
The proposed system fixes the huge advantages currently present with the SC’s, also boosts the effectiveness of scent of fear, makes cloaking more unique, and slightly nerfs focus so that the upgrade is exclusive on the SC line. Why focus does not receive any benefits is because focus is the best upgrade in the game, but more on that later. In addition to everything else, SCs would truly be unique from other chambers, as the passive ability given by the chamber itself changes depending on what upgrade the alien chooses. This helps to make them all viable, by allowing them to have something over the other upgrade.
SCs would still cloak itself, cloak other structures, and also reveal enemy structures. But it would not cloak players unless they have the cloaking upgrade, and will not show locations of marines unless the alien has scent of fear.
Focus
The best upgrade in the game. Focus composes two aliens into one. While generally the entire alien team will not take focus, they could and it would still be a good choice. Focus negates medspam with one hit kills, takes two hits to kill marines on average, provides an excellent early game advantage, forces marines to upgrade armor 1 as soon as possible, forces marines to carry welders on the field to repair armor after each fight in fear of the one hit kill, and compliments the hit and run nature of aliens. It turns the most effective playstyles into even more effective playstyles. It allows easy killings on upgraded marines, such as jetpacks and heavy armor. The only disadvantage to focus is that it slower at deconstruction than normal bites, because its actual attack speed decrease is more than 50%. However, this isn’t much of a disadvantage, because the real problem to killing structures is when marines protect them. Therefore, the best way to kill a structure is to kill the marines protecting them, which is exactly what focus does.
A skulk normally has a difficult time getting in more than one bite on a marine, but with focus he is gets a two for one special, and since he is a free unit with a one way ticket, the skulk with focus finds his role much easier to play. At two hives, a focus leaping skulk is a nightmare for marines. The gorge, sadly, is the only creature that does not receive a big benefit from focus, but this is due to the nature of the gorge, he is a builder, not a fighter. The lerk with focus is able to make dangerous fly-bys, and if the only upgrade with the fragile lerk is focus, he is playing a bit of a risk for 30 resources as this upgrade implies he will take part of combat. A lerk with focus or other focus aliens nearby are extremely lethal, as once spores wears down the marine’s armor he’s focus food. An onos with focus isn’t a bad choice, but since the onos is primarily the aliens siege unit, focus can place a detriment in leveling structures. Finally there is the focus fade, quite possibly the best upgrade in the game for the fade. The fade being the best hit and run unit logically benefits from the upgrade that deals the most up-front damage.
Because focus is an upgrade with awesome power, it did not get any boosts from the sensory chamber in my proposed solution above.
Scent of Fear
Scent of fear in the current build got quite the major nerf. Previously scent of fear a unique upgrade and very useful in locating marines, but not as useful as other upgrades. Even though scent of fear was sub-par in comparison with other upgrades, for some reason scent of fear was reduced in effectiveness when it was a given as a freebie on SC’s. Not only does this make the SC zone even more deadly, but also it makes scent of fear as a normal upgrade redundant. Even still, scent of fear is still useful for the lerk, gorge, and onos. For the fade, focus is the obvious choice, and for the skulk cloaking or focus is more desirable in the job of killing marines. The onos can take scent of fear because focus lowers his building smashing power, and cloaking on the onos is useless. Finally the gorge is most concerned with hiding and living to build, so focus isn’t very useful there, and cloaking can hide the gorge, but seeing them coming can be preferable to those who like to be the non-confrontational type of gorge.
Scent of fear would be a much more powerful and unique upgrade to the aliens if it were linked to the SCs on the field, and also would serve as a dissimilar counter to motion tracking.
Cloaking
The most frustrating upgrade to play against, it is also the most specialized upgrade, with entire buildings, tactics, and upgrades built around countering this one ability. Until marines acquire the hard counters necessary to overcome cloaking, cloaking is practically unbeatable by any normal means from a player, such as outmaneuvering the alien, or having such superior aim the alien is unable to kill the marine in time. Even medspam is difficult to time, as generally cloaked ambushes are not expected, and unless the commander has his eyes on a marine who is suddenly attacked, he will not be able to respond in time.
Cloaking is indeed a specialized tool, with only real benefits to the skulk and gorge. Since cloaking is lost with any attack, a lerk who is always sporing or using umbra, the fade who always must blink sees no use in cloak, and the onos is just too big to hide. The lerk also has much to gain from scent of fear or focus, boosting its placement of spores or battle ability, and fades gain so much from focus its doubtful to ever see another upgrade preferred for a sensory fade. Skulks are most effective when ambushing, and so cloaking is a natural choice. Gorges who prefer to hide from marines and act as support for skulks who need it by safely remaining cloaked until skulks need him also see use in cloaking.
It would be interesting to see if cloaking could be made more useful for all classes by allowing them to use slot 2 attacks and not lose their cloak. This means cloaking-blinking fades, or spores that do not reveal the lerk. It probably would not boost cloaking in any significant fashion, but until a test is done, which is unlikely, there is no real way to tell.
As it currently stands, cloaking fits into the game, but places much more emphasis on strategy and less on tactics. NS being a hybrid of RTS-FPS, those who favor the FPS will naturally hate cloaking, and those who favor the RTS will love it. Still, regardless of any opinion, cloaking has to stay because it matches the developer’s intent with SCs.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh, and to reply to that "CLANNERS DON'T ADAPT THEY ARE NEWB 'E' BUT ADAPTING PUB COMMS WHO DON'T MAKE UP RULES LIKE IGNORAMUSOSOSOS R TEH WIN-"
<!--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-->
QUOTE
<i>Honestly, not as an insult, clanners are not that quick to adapt. They find a strat that works, and practice it.</i>
this argument fails to realize that the very reason clanners are clanners, and are skilled at what they do is because they adapt the fastest. They do not find a strategy that works; they find the strategy with the most destructive and overpowering value possible, and perfect it.
<i>That's possibly the driving concept behind competative play. Finding the quirks and using them to your advantage.</i>
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What I do have a problem with however are people who only know how to cloak, and combat brings a lot of these people. Instead of using their res, communicating, or aiding their team in any way they spend the majority of the game hiding in a corner waiting for a free kill. It is very frustrating to be on a team with these kind of people. Not that I hate all n00bs but I do get annoyed by the ones who don't make any attempt at trying to understand the gameplay.
Cloak in combat I do have a problem with. When I play combat now it seems like no one relies on their skill at all but instead their ability to hold the shift key. Oh well. When people cloak, for me at least, it just makes them easier to kill. The frustrating part, however, is when no one else on your team can kill a cloaked skulk and you find that you're the only one with more kills than deaths...
how this will work:
1. with each death the marine team will gain one point of mana, the mana pool has a max of 100 to start with but can be upgraded.
2. to utilise the mana the marines have acquired the commander should drop a buildable "Arcane Sanctum" unit, this will work much like the Arms Lab.
3. once the Arcane Sanctum has been built, the commander can use res to research upgrades that use mana points.
Typical spells/upgrades could be "Hunter's Mark" that could improve the stealth detection range of the marines for a short period of time. "Powerword: Shield" that could give a single marine +200 armour for a short period of time and "Trueshot Aura" that gives the marines +5% attack damage.
all these spells would prove valuble against sensory strats, i recommend that team killing is turned off though, as this can be somewhat abused.
since playing ns combat, i have always thought ns would delve further into adding typical rpg features. i sense that now is the time to add more fresh and exciting elements to the game that has virtually been played the same for the past two years.
i hope a dev takes heed of this idea, as it would be really nice to play with. any feedback from players on this?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
april foolsday is tomorrow?!
I didn't start this topic to say that sensory is a balanced chamber (it is not, by all means, I'd have to side with the clanners on this one), but the fact that cloaking is not "fun".
I just wanted to say that cloaking by itself, isn't a "boring" way to play.
As for sensory balance, I agree that it is totally overpowered, but it's kind of hard to think how you'd work it.
I think decreasing AA cost to 25 and lowering research time to 2:20 while increasing energy production from the obs by 50% would be able to offset the balance disparity in both clan and pub play.
Edit:
Though I do admit it's a lot easier to counter sensory in pub play due to its inherently disorganized gameplay on the alien side.
how this will work:
1. with each death the marine team will gain one point of mana, the mana pool has a max of 100 to start with but can be upgraded.
2. to utilise the mana the marines have acquired the commander should drop a buildable "Arcane Sanctum" unit, this will work much like the Arms Lab.
3. once the Arcane Sanctum has been built, the commander can use res to research upgrades that use mana points.
Typical spells/upgrades could be "Hunter's Mark" that could improve the stealth detection range of the marines for a short period of time. "Powerword: Shield" that could give a single marine +200 armour for a short period of time and "Trueshot Aura" that gives the marines +5% attack damage.
all these spells would prove valuble against sensory strats, i recommend that team killing is turned off though, as this can be somewhat abused.
since playing ns combat, i have always thought ns would delve further into adding typical rpg features. i sense that now is the time to add more fresh and exciting elements to the game that has virtually been played the same for the past two years.
i hope a dev takes heed of this idea, as it would be really nice to play with. any feedback from players on this?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
april foolsday is tomorrow?! <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
nope, not at all.
why do you think i don't play ns? why do you think i see wzza every bloody day riding on his mount through ironforge?
because we're playing wow instead. what does wow have? MANA POOL.
correct!
and for your info, me, evilness and moomin discussed this in detail months ago.
armor
resup
in that order
Group A uses it and wins 50% of the time when using feature 1.
Group B uses it and wins 100% of the time when using feature, regardless of what the opponants tries to do.
What I see in this thread is <i>the equivalent of</i> group A saying "feature 1 is not unbalanced, because I dont win all the time", while group B says "we know how to best exploit feature 1, and we never lose when we do". Group A then counters "well we cant use feature 1 well enough, so you're wrong".
Now, isnt this a bit absurd?
[<i>Edit in italic</i>] <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You missed something I think is key:
There are more features than Feature 1.
I have yet to hear if group B has similar troubles dealing with Features 2 and 3.
My hypothesis still remains on the idea that no matter what the first chamber, aliens will still dominate. From what I hear, this was still happening at least with movement chambers. I don't know if clans are playing much with the other chambers right now though.
The question to ask is "Is it specifically feature 1, or is it just that because feature 1 was so lousy before, the change is the most dramatic, but really it's something external to this particular feature?"
If the clanners can say "No, with MCs or DCs first everythings fine and the game's balanced" I'm happy to shut up about it. Personally, I'll still think the root cause is the clan-game's emphasis on the early game and it'd be better to address *that* than a particular chamber, but as I said, if that's the way they want to play, I'm not going to question it. However, in that case, I will swing around to Savant's idea of needing more separation between tourney mode and regular mode.
This is correct.
Group A uses it and wins 50% of the time when using feature 1.
Group B uses it and wins 100% of the time when using feature, regardless of what the opponants tries to do.
What I see in this thread is <i>the equivalent of</i> group A saying "feature 1 is not unbalanced, because I dont win all the time", while group B says "we know how to best exploit feature 1, and we never lose when we do". Group A then counters "well we cant use feature 1 well enough, so you're wrong".
Now, isnt this a bit absurd?
[<i>Edit in italic</i>] <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You missed something I think is key:
There are more features than Feature 1.
I have yet to hear if group B has similar troubles dealing with Features 2 and 3.
My hypothesis still remains on the idea that no matter what the first chamber, aliens will still dominate. From what I hear, this was still happening at least with movement chambers. I don't know if clans are playing much with the other chambers right now though.
The question to ask is "Is it specifically feature 1, or is it just that because feature 1 was so lousy before, the change is the most dramatic, but really it's something external to this particular feature?" <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I didnt miss it, I chose to omit that part. My point wasnt to talk about feature 1 or balance or whatever, but rather to highlight the absurdity of alot of responses in this thread.
But are they really that absurd? If it's not Feature 1 that's the actual problem, then the group saying "Well we lose sometimes so it's not that" bears investigating. After all, presumably the aliens aren't the only ones who are unskilled on pubs.
But are they really that absurd? If it's not Feature 1 that's the actual problem, then the group saying "Well we lose sometimes so it's not that" bears investigating. After all, presumably the aliens aren't the only ones who are unskilled on pubs. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
But since the same pattern of replies repeats themselves regardless of whether it is feature 1, or feature 2, or the overall Game, I dont know if I can agree with you.
Or pretend that feature 1 is the alien team in general. The pattern of replies still look like that.
Now, your point would have been valid had this not been the case.
Nope. If you travel in groups of 3 or more, youll see how the focus fade kinda sucks. The extra time to attack 1 marine makes it easier for the other Rines too unload the lead. Not to mention by the time the 1st fade pops up, you should have armor1. And theres always shottys... <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::fade::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/fade.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='fade.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>At least</b> 3 marines and armor 1. Usually more, if your planning on marching to a hive location.