I think itd be interesting to see how an RFK might work with the new "buy your own stuff" model. It could work out nicely if RFK only added to the individual players res pool but the comm only got res from nodes. I'm one of the people that has been pretty apathetic to the RFK in NS1. Ive only seen it actually effect the flow of a game ONCE! Saying that it completely and irreversibly destroyed NS1 is the most ridiculous exaggeration Ive ever heard. That being said I wouldnt mind RFK in NS2, as long as it fit the resource model well.
What are you talking about, R4K affected EVERY game, because as I pointed out, it benefits marines far more than it does aliens. The only time aliens get significant use out of R4K is if one player is dramatically better than the others, allowing him to monopolize the majority of kills and get early Fade.
Strictly speaking, marines dying to aliens had 1/8th the impact an alien dying to a marine did. It alone was one of the main reasons I quit NS, because the game had gradually gone from "Aliens are loners and marines are teamers" to the polar opposite of that, where between R4K making it imperative for aliens to NOT die, and the redistribution of abilities which cluttered them with needless support roles, it was more punishing for an alien to not be working as a tight-nit team than it was for a marine.
When a marine is working as a team, it means shooting bad guys before they eat your friend, hold 'e' on something, and make a welder train. When an alien is working as a team, it meant bilebomb, healspray, umbra, primal roar, parasite, hit-and-run onos stomp drivebys.
Finally, NS 3.0's most damning 'feature' which was an indirect consequence of R4K was early-game deciders. Early Fade usually meant the marine team was going to lose, and in the majority of games this was the case. The result was them spending a long, painful match with almost no hope of a comeback (something that wasn't extremely uncommon in earlier builds of NS). For the marines, however, a failed skulk rush or a quick spawncamping spree could make the game for them. They eventually die and come back to base to find a bunch of shiny new upgrades. The alien team, having lost territory because of their deaths, again finds themselves in an insurmountable situation where they cannot spend the resources to retake their ground while also saving up to counter the escalated marine threat.
And don't you dare tell me that NS 3.0 games weren't usually decided in the first few minutes.
R4K working with 'buy your own stuff' could alleviate some of the consequences of this utterly **** design, but only in the sense that the 'early-game decider' factor would be the same for both teams. Instead of early Fade deciding the game, it could be early Power Armor instead. I'd rather see it gone completely. As long as a direct reward for kills exists in the game, it'll be too easy for one player to monopolize the game for either team. The game should be about territory and res nodes, not frags.
I think that, at its core, RFK seems to go against what I would like to see in NS2, which is a more heavy reliance on teamwork (which is of course debatable). Now, the one thing that I'm not so sure about is, are there separate resource models in NS2? I know that marines will be buying their own weapons and such, so they'd be spending from their own set of points, yes? Based on that kind of thing, it's a little tougher to say if I approve of a RFK system. It does seem fair that your own personal resources should increase depending on how well you and the team are doing.
I would like to propose a minor heresy for consideration.
What if there was a deliberate system (akin to the L4D AI director) which would deliberately seek to give the losing a certain limited amount of benefits, one which would ramp down its involvement after a certain point? Perhaps it could tweak resource yield of different towers. It would still be possible to stomp the enemy team early on, but there would be a built-in system to provide a source of negative feedback against it.
And if needed, it could subtly encourage a snowballing effect for one team to win after a certain amount of time too.
Yes, it's not nearly as elegant as a superbly balanced resource model and tech trees honed by the fiery forge of ten thousand full-length games, but it might actually be practical from day one. It'd need to be able to judge which team was "losing" (and by what degree) from a resourcing aspect, a K:D aspect, and a territorial control aspect. But since it doesn't need to be fast-twitch-real-time and can plausibly have perfect knowledge of the game world.
The main downside is that people could rage and blame the system for "interfering"...
<!--quoteo(post=1741663:date=Nov 30 2009, 09:03 AM:name=Terr)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Terr @ Nov 30 2009, 09:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1741663"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The main downside is that people could rage and blame the system for "interfering"...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Systems like that are quite difficult to implement in a competetive player vs player game. For L4D the autodirector sounds like a great idea due to the nature of the game, but there are certain issues when it's implemented to game like NS.
I could somewhat agree such system in public game as long as it's subtle enough, but it doesn't suit the competetive play one bit. Then again the growing gap between public and organised play is a constant problem nowadays, so just disabling it on competetive mode isn't an optimal solution either. I'd at least try to seek the solution elsewhere in the first place before implementing such system. For example various techs and less location based tech options could provide some nice comeback potential and game finishing moves.
Yeah I'd steer clear of that. It doesn't even work in L4D, I tire of rounds where the other team has literally more medkits than they know what to do with, and we're lucky if we find a single pipebomb.
Also what the hell are 'location-based techs', you mean like needing three hives?
<!--quoteo(post=1741683:date=Nov 30 2009, 05:05 AM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Temphage @ Nov 30 2009, 05:05 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1741683"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also what the hell are 'location-based techs', you mean like needing three hives?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's a reference to another idea that holding specific rooms/locations give special perks. This would make holding certain areas strategic and not just for res.
Instead of RFK I'd like to see a growing resgain the longer a tower's active. It would speed up the game (RFK's role) because of increased rates from well defended towers, put action into the round because of increased patrols (you have to take down the enemy's tower fast enough) and rewards a team for harassing the enemy's funding.
<!--quoteo(post=1741715:date=Nov 30 2009, 03:23 PM:name=spellman23)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(spellman23 @ Nov 30 2009, 03:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1741715"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's a reference to another idea that holding specific rooms/locations give special perks. This would make holding certain areas strategic and not just for res.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, it refers to having to hold a certain area to access a new tier of tech. If marines relocate to a hive room the aliens will have a lot harder time breaking a turtle than if they stayed in marine spawn.
RFK benefits both teams equally, saying it benefits marines more is just wrong. For example, if you get a kill as an early game skulk you can go lerk a lot faster than without that, and the extra 30s of spores/node control can mean an insane difference in how the game will turn out.
RFK is the only solid "focused" way of directing resources on the alien team and is very very useful for that. The marine team gets 10 res and puts it straight into a shotgun, while the alien team has to wait six times as long as that because each individual is getting 10/6 resources in the same amount of time.
With that said, with a unified resource system for both teams supposedly in NS2, RFK seems likely just to induce a steeper slippery slope, with less chance of come-backs. The double-dip of killing the opponent and giving a bonus is not a gameplay mechanic I'm in favour of (10 seconds of crits on flag cap in CTF mode on TF2 does this and is horrible).
IMO a better way of directing the flow of resources to individual weapons/lifeforms would be desirable. To me this is the "good bit" of RFK in NS1 (as opposed to the necessary nature of it to counterbalance med/ammo drops against spore and the downright bad slippery slope).
<!--quoteo(post=1741533:date=Nov 29 2009, 01:44 PM:name=tjosan)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tjosan @ Nov 29 2009, 01:44 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1741533"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Throwing yourself at the enemy was never a good idea, rfk or no rfk. By dying and filling up the spawn cue you lose the single most important resource in the game, active player time. From my point of view rfk is a simple and explicit way of cueing that it is a bad idea to get killed for nothing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> As far as "throwing yourself at the enemy", at times it's either do that to try and stop the marine's advance, or lose a hive. You can't always wait for a more ideal time to attack, sometimes it's everything or nothing. Unfortunately, with RFK this has a tendency to help out the marines too much, when it should be a big risk to them as well (losing a lot of gear, spawn queue)
<!--quoteo(post=1741727:date=Nov 30 2009, 10:20 AM:name=RobB)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RobB @ Nov 30 2009, 10:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1741727"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Instead of RFK I'd like to see a growing resgain the longer a tower's active. It would speed up the game (RFK's role) because of increased rates from well defended towers, put action into the round because of increased patrols (you have to take down the enemy's tower fast enough) and rewards a team for harassing the enemy's funding.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> how about doing this via a cheap upgrade (5 res or so) that takes a long time to complete? It wouldn't be worth it on poorly defended towers because it (hopefully) would not be allowed to finish by the other team, but behind the front lines it would be useful
I thought more in therms of each cycle nets you 1~5% more resources while the start up cycle is rather useless. I've had a comm on one of my regular pubs that forced his marines to defend a risky rt until it paid of it's costs, so he inspired this idea partialy.
<a href="http://s2.directupload.net/images/091201/fmfxkv8x.png" target="_blank">boot - average - tuned</a>
also, this is meant for both teams, not only marines so cheap longrun upgrade isnt feasible.
NS was once all about mapcontroll. And this puts it back into the game, if you dont look after the enemy's stuff and trash it, it'll cost you. dearly.
RfK benefits the marine team more than the alien team because of pooled resources. Every alien a marine kills is added to the group pool meaning the whole team can get upgrades earlier. Every marine an alien kills is added to their personal pool, meaning they can upgrade sooner but also meaning that no other alien has access to any benefit from those resources.
That said, RfK sucks because it encourages both teams to hate on the noobs, which isn't a good idea if we want to be actually encouraging people to play.
<!--quoteo(post=1741131:date=Nov 28 2009, 06:35 AM:name=borsuk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(borsuk @ Nov 28 2009, 06:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1741131"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->RFK-based FPS game with aliens, marines and base building: <a href="http://tremulous.net" target="_blank">http://tremulous.net</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Quoted for emphasis. You don't have to play that game for long to figure what went very wrong. Most rounds are extremely stale because of the resource mechanics (with zero advantage to holding territory) and both teams spend most of their time running to heal , with no decisive action until the very end (if not reaching sudden death)
a_civilianLikes seeing numbersJoin Date: 2003-01-08Member: 12041Members, NS1 Playtester, Playtest Lead
<!--quoteo(post=1741802:date=Nov 30 2009, 08:48 PM:name=Kwil)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Kwil @ Nov 30 2009, 08:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1741802"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->RfK benefits the marine team more than the alien team because of pooled resources. Every alien a marine kills is added to the group pool meaning the whole team can get upgrades earlier. Every marine an alien kills is added to their personal pool, meaning they can upgrade sooner but also meaning that no other alien has access to any benefit from those resources.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How does that imply RFK benefits marines more?
If an alien gets one kill, then his tech level advances by some quantity c and the rest of the team advances by 0. If a marine gets one kill, then the whole team advances in tech by c but each member advances by c/n (if n is team size). The kill is proportionally more valuable to the alien to make up for the fact that it only benefits him. It's the same amount of resources in each case.
If anything, RFK is relatively more valuable to aliens because there is a measure of control over the distribution of alien RFK that isn't present for resource tower income. Marine RFK, on the other hand, is distributed in the same manner as their resource tower income.
You could argue that resources in general are more valuable to marines, and that would likely be true as a result of the fact that aliens also have to control hive sites, but that's not a consequence of the resource model.
<!--quoteo(post=1742190:date=Dec 2 2009, 04:01 PM:name=a_civilian)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(a_civilian @ Dec 2 2009, 04:01 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1742190"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If an alien gets one kill, then his tech level advances by some quantity c and the rest of the team advances by 0. If a marine gets one kill, then the whole team advances in tech by c but each member advances by c/n (if n is team size). The kill is proportionally more valuable to the alien to make up for the fact that it only benefits him. It's the same amount of resources in each case.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It doesn't matter if it's the same absolute number of resources. The asymmetry still changes things. Here's a simple example.
Suppose Team A has a shared pool, Team B has individual pools, each kill is worth 5, and an upgrade costs 10. 10 players per team.
After a while, both teams have fought equally well, with ten dead A's and ten dead B's. Team A's communal pool has 50 points, enough to upgrade half their team into juggernauts of destruction. Every player on Team B has 5, and can't <i>do</i> anything with their resources. Team A will always be able to field upgraded units and special abilities first.
This could be alleviated if Team B was able to upgrade themselves in a very granular fashion, but that won't really work with some abiliites.
a_civilianLikes seeing numbersJoin Date: 2003-01-08Member: 12041Members, NS1 Playtester, Playtest Lead
edited December 2009
The same is true for resource tower income. Do you contend that resource tower income suffers the same imbalance?
Regardless, RFK does not favor marines any more than resource tower income favors marines (and due to the control argument the opposite is actually true).
The R4K in NS1 affected each team at a different time when it was unbalancing:
Early aliens with lots of kills could drop an early hive/go fade early for even more points from kills.
Late game marines stuck in their main could buys upgrades from the R4K from the attacking aliens to buy more defenses. Since aliens were already topped out in abilities, upgrades extra income didn't really matter except to buy new lifeforms for the marines to kill. Basically 3 hive aliens weren't strong enough to overcome the marine's defense when they could simply keep buying new equipment/upgrades.
I hope that R4K type benefits are limited to either top tier kills of lifeforms and equipment (ie killing of Heavy/JP/Fade/Onos) or removed completely. Killing base marines, skulks, lerks and gorges should not reward the other team.
<!--quoteo(post=1742306:date=Dec 3 2009, 07:18 PM:name=snooggums)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(snooggums @ Dec 3 2009, 07:18 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1742306"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I hope that R4K type benefits are limited to either top tier kills of lifeforms and equipment (ie killing of Heavy/JP/Fade/Onos) or removed completely. Killing base marines, skulks, lerks and gorges should not reward the other team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Based on NS1 the RFK on HAs, JPs and lifeforms is almost irrelevant compared to the damage you're doing to your opponent. If the RFK can't be worked out for the lower lifeforms, it should be removed unless NS2 has combat styled unlimited lifeforms or something similar to that.
Even if RFK couldn't make it to the game, it's still worth some consideration whether some of the positive elements of it could be used in the game elsewhere.
One of the bad things ive seen from RFK. Is that generally in public games of NS, aliens never get gorges. The first gorge to go is the one that drops the hives. This is because with RFK they dont really need RT's. However this does mean if they are not winning the game in the first 5 mins they lose due to marines having all RTS capped.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One of the bad things ive seen from RFK. Is that generally in public games of NS, aliens never get gorges. The first gorge to go is the one that drops the hives. This is because with RFK they dont really need RT's. However this does mean if they are not winning the game in the first 5 mins they lose due to marines having all RTS capped.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Correlation != casuality. Just because on public servers people aren't motivated to drop RTs while there is RFK, doesn't mean that's because they don't have to or that it has anything to do with RFK.
Ok well I did word it abit harshly I ment to say that is the only bad thing ive seen come from it.
It is rather annoying though to be the only gorge on a team SLOOOOWLY building res towers. Whilst one guy gets fade and then just chews up resources whilst your SLOOOWLY still building res towers.
Perhaps 30% of a lerk's, 50% of a fade's and 75% of an onos's res from kills could go to gorges?
Gorges gaining res slowly is a res model issue more than it's RFK. Still, I can't see any reason why gorges couldn't get RFK from assists and thus improve their res gain and encourage smart battlegorging.
I doubt pure permgorge out of action is ever going to gain massive res flow. It doesn't just work that one player can sit behind the lines and invoke massive economy or defensive line in no time. Sharing RFK to gorges sounds tricky too. A bad gorge could easily wreck the alien game at that point, just like 1.0 era.
what about a credit system? rather than rfk a player will get 'credit' towards the team's res pool, that they could spend from. the commander in this case would have "unlimited credit". neither team would gain an overall benefit res-wise, but the individual player will still be rewarded for their kill. expand credit-gaining exercises to assists and support-roles so that the less trigger-happy can still get good equipment. or.. with two different resources. have one resource be a 'personal resource' - gained by yourself for yourself (RFK), spent by yourself for yourself (maybe no gun-sharing then). and a team resource - spent by the commander for the team (buildings, researches, etc) gained from res towers only (no RFK).
<!--quoteo(post=1741727:date=Dec 1 2009, 12:20 AM:name=RobB)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobB @ Dec 1 2009, 12:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1741727"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Instead of RFK I'd like to see a growing resgain the longer a tower's active. It would speed up the game (RFK's role) because of increased rates from well defended towers, put action into the round because of increased patrols (you have to take down the enemy's tower fast enough) and rewards a team for harassing the enemy's funding.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> interesting idea. you could have certain thresholds. i.e. res tower A currently harvests at a rate of m/second and has now harvested x amount of res, and automatically upgrades to a higher tier of res tower and now harvests at a rate of n/second (n>m); complete with visual cues, and the commander should be able to see how much each tower has harvested so far. alternatively you could have the res towers be upgradeable after that certain threshold -> more durable, and higher res gain, but does have a cost associated with it.
<!--quoteo(post=1741456:date=Nov 29 2009, 05:38 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 29 2009, 05:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1741456"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->RFK made large games even worse, as marines shot up the tech ladder. Marine res goes to a pool, alien res does not. If 8 marines kill 8 skulks, they now have around 16 res. If 8 skulks kill 8 aliens, they all have 2 res. Broken res node mechanic aside, even if it were 24 vs. 24 you only have to assume it's a 1:1 kill scenario, which benefits the aliens hardly at all.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> If both marines and aliens keep the res (half map each) alien side has the favor. Why because they do not need res to heal or give adreline. They do not have to use this res on upgrades except chambers which can be done by 1 skulk early game. That was bad comparison but my point is you cant compare alien res control and marine res control they are that different.
RFK is a must, seriously we are already down to 1 possible start hive! This is going to be less than cs if we keep deleting factors like these. Obviously there are more benefits than losses here.
The more random factors there are in a game the less fun it is, imo.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->we are already down to 1 possible start hive!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
Strictly speaking, marines dying to aliens had 1/8th the impact an alien dying to a marine did. It alone was one of the main reasons I quit NS, because the game had gradually gone from "Aliens are loners and marines are teamers" to the polar opposite of that, where between R4K making it imperative for aliens to NOT die, and the redistribution of abilities which cluttered them with needless support roles, it was more punishing for an alien to not be working as a tight-nit team than it was for a marine.
When a marine is working as a team, it means shooting bad guys before they eat your friend, hold 'e' on something, and make a welder train.
When an alien is working as a team, it meant bilebomb, healspray, umbra, primal roar, parasite, hit-and-run onos stomp drivebys.
Finally, NS 3.0's most damning 'feature' which was an indirect consequence of R4K was early-game deciders. Early Fade usually meant the marine team was going to lose, and in the majority of games this was the case. The result was them spending a long, painful match with almost no hope of a comeback (something that wasn't extremely uncommon in earlier builds of NS). For the marines, however, a failed skulk rush or a quick spawncamping spree could make the game for them. They eventually die and come back to base to find a bunch of shiny new upgrades. The alien team, having lost territory because of their deaths, again finds themselves in an insurmountable situation where they cannot spend the resources to retake their ground while also saving up to counter the escalated marine threat.
And don't you dare tell me that NS 3.0 games weren't usually decided in the first few minutes.
R4K working with 'buy your own stuff' could alleviate some of the consequences of this utterly **** design, but only in the sense that the 'early-game decider' factor would be the same for both teams. Instead of early Fade deciding the game, it could be early Power Armor instead. I'd rather see it gone completely. As long as a direct reward for kills exists in the game, it'll be too easy for one player to monopolize the game for either team. The game should be about territory and res nodes, not frags.
What if there was a deliberate system (akin to the L4D AI director) which would deliberately seek to give the losing a certain limited amount of benefits, one which would ramp down its involvement after a certain point? Perhaps it could tweak resource yield of different towers. It would still be possible to stomp the enemy team early on, but there would be a built-in system to provide a source of negative feedback against it.
And if needed, it could subtly encourage a snowballing effect for one team to win after a certain amount of time too.
Yes, it's not nearly as elegant as a superbly balanced resource model and tech trees honed by the fiery forge of ten thousand full-length games, but it might actually be practical from day one. It'd need to be able to judge which team was "losing" (and by what degree) from a resourcing aspect, a K:D aspect, and a territorial control aspect. But since it doesn't need to be fast-twitch-real-time and can plausibly have perfect knowledge of the game world.
The main downside is that people could rage and blame the system for "interfering"...
Systems like that are quite difficult to implement in a competetive player vs player game. For L4D the autodirector sounds like a great idea due to the nature of the game, but there are certain issues when it's implemented to game like NS.
I could somewhat agree such system in public game as long as it's subtle enough, but it doesn't suit the competetive play one bit. Then again the growing gap between public and organised play is a constant problem nowadays, so just disabling it on competetive mode isn't an optimal solution either. I'd at least try to seek the solution elsewhere in the first place before implementing such system. For example various techs and less location based tech options could provide some nice comeback potential and game finishing moves.
Edit: Yeh, hives are location based techs.
Also what the hell are 'location-based techs', you mean like needing three hives?
It's a reference to another idea that holding specific rooms/locations give special perks. This would make holding certain areas strategic and not just for res.
It would speed up the game (RFK's role) because of increased rates from well defended towers, put action into the round because of increased patrols (you have to take down the enemy's tower fast enough) and rewards a team for harassing the enemy's funding.
No, it refers to having to hold a certain area to access a new tier of tech. If marines relocate to a hive room the aliens will have a lot harder time breaking a turtle than if they stayed in marine spawn.
RFK benefits both teams equally, saying it benefits marines more is just wrong. For example, if you get a kill as an early game skulk you can go lerk a lot faster than without that, and the extra 30s of spores/node control can mean an insane difference in how the game will turn out.
RFK is the only solid "focused" way of directing resources on the alien team and is very very useful for that. The marine team gets 10 res and puts it straight into a shotgun, while the alien team has to wait six times as long as that because each individual is getting 10/6 resources in the same amount of time.
With that said, with a unified resource system for both teams supposedly in NS2, RFK seems likely just to induce a steeper slippery slope, with less chance of come-backs. The double-dip of killing the opponent and giving a bonus is not a gameplay mechanic I'm in favour of (10 seconds of crits on flag cap in CTF mode on TF2 does this and is horrible).
IMO a better way of directing the flow of resources to individual weapons/lifeforms would be desirable. To me this is the "good bit" of RFK in NS1 (as opposed to the necessary nature of it to counterbalance med/ammo drops against spore and the downright bad slippery slope).
As far as "throwing yourself at the enemy", at times it's either do that to try and stop the marine's advance, or lose a hive. You can't always wait for a more ideal time to attack, sometimes it's everything or nothing. Unfortunately, with RFK this has a tendency to help out the marines too much, when it should be a big risk to them as well (losing a lot of gear, spawn queue)
<!--quoteo(post=1741727:date=Nov 30 2009, 10:20 AM:name=RobB)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RobB @ Nov 30 2009, 10:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1741727"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Instead of RFK I'd like to see a growing resgain the longer a tower's active.
It would speed up the game (RFK's role) because of increased rates from well defended towers, put action into the round because of increased patrols (you have to take down the enemy's tower fast enough) and rewards a team for harassing the enemy's funding.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
how about doing this via a cheap upgrade (5 res or so) that takes a long time to complete? It wouldn't be worth it on poorly defended towers because it (hopefully) would not be allowed to finish by the other team, but behind the front lines it would be useful
I've had a comm on one of my regular pubs that forced his marines to defend a risky rt until it paid of it's costs, so he inspired this idea partialy.
<a href="http://s2.directupload.net/images/091201/fmfxkv8x.png" target="_blank">boot - average - tuned</a>
also, this is meant for both teams, not only marines so cheap longrun upgrade isnt feasible.
NS was once all about mapcontroll. And this puts it back into the game, if you dont look after the enemy's stuff and trash it, it'll cost you. dearly.
That said, RfK sucks because it encourages both teams to hate on the noobs, which isn't a good idea if we want to be actually encouraging people to play.
Quoted for emphasis. You don't have to play that game for long to figure what went very wrong. Most rounds are extremely stale because of the resource mechanics (with zero advantage to holding territory) and both teams spend most of their time running to heal , with no decisive action until the very end (if not reaching sudden death)
How does that imply RFK benefits marines more?
If an alien gets one kill, then his tech level advances by some quantity c and the rest of the team advances by 0. If a marine gets one kill, then the whole team advances in tech by c but each member advances by c/n (if n is team size). The kill is proportionally more valuable to the alien to make up for the fact that it only benefits him. It's the same amount of resources in each case.
If anything, RFK is relatively more valuable to aliens because there is a measure of control over the distribution of alien RFK that isn't present for resource tower income. Marine RFK, on the other hand, is distributed in the same manner as their resource tower income.
You could argue that resources in general are more valuable to marines, and that would likely be true as a result of the fact that aliens also have to control hive sites, but that's not a consequence of the resource model.
It doesn't matter if it's the same absolute number of resources. The asymmetry still changes things. Here's a simple example.
Suppose Team A has a shared pool, Team B has individual pools, each kill is worth 5, and an upgrade costs 10. 10 players per team.
After a while, both teams have fought equally well, with ten dead A's and ten dead B's. Team A's communal pool has 50 points, enough to upgrade half their team into juggernauts of destruction. Every player on Team B has 5, and can't <i>do</i> anything with their resources. Team A will always be able to field upgraded units and special abilities first.
This could be alleviated if Team B was able to upgrade themselves in a very granular fashion, but that won't really work with some abiliites.
Regardless, RFK does not favor marines any more than resource tower income favors marines (and due to the control argument the opposite is actually true).
Early aliens with lots of kills could drop an early hive/go fade early for even more points from kills.
Late game marines stuck in their main could buys upgrades from the R4K from the attacking aliens to buy more defenses. Since aliens were already topped out in abilities, upgrades extra income didn't really matter except to buy new lifeforms for the marines to kill. Basically 3 hive aliens weren't strong enough to overcome the marine's defense when they could simply keep buying new equipment/upgrades.
I hope that R4K type benefits are limited to either top tier kills of lifeforms and equipment (ie killing of Heavy/JP/Fade/Onos) or removed completely. Killing base marines, skulks, lerks and gorges should not reward the other team.
Based on NS1 the RFK on HAs, JPs and lifeforms is almost irrelevant compared to the damage you're doing to your opponent. If the RFK can't be worked out for the lower lifeforms, it should be removed unless NS2 has combat styled unlimited lifeforms or something similar to that.
Even if RFK couldn't make it to the game, it's still worth some consideration whether some of the positive elements of it could be used in the game elsewhere.
Is that generally in public games of NS, aliens never get gorges.
The first gorge to go is the one that drops the hives.
This is because with RFK they dont really need RT's.
However this does mean if they are not winning the game in the first 5 mins they lose due to marines having all RTS capped.
Is that generally in public games of NS, aliens never get gorges.
The first gorge to go is the one that drops the hives.
This is because with RFK they dont really need RT's.
However this does mean if they are not winning the game in the first 5 mins they lose due to marines having all RTS capped.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wow... just wow.
No.
Go on public servers...
Count how many RTs get dropped by aliens.
I ment to say that is the only bad thing ive seen come from it.
It is rather annoying though to be the only gorge on a team SLOOOOWLY building res towers.
Whilst one guy gets fade and then just chews up resources whilst your SLOOOWLY still building res towers.
Perhaps 30% of a lerk's, 50% of a fade's and 75% of an onos's res from kills could go to gorges?
I doubt pure permgorge out of action is ever going to gain massive res flow. It doesn't just work that one player can sit behind the lines and invoke massive economy or defensive line in no time. Sharing RFK to gorges sounds tricky too. A bad gorge could easily wreck the alien game at that point, just like 1.0 era.
or.. with two different resources. have one resource be a 'personal resource' - gained by yourself for yourself (RFK), spent by yourself for yourself (maybe no gun-sharing then). and a team resource - spent by the commander for the team (buildings, researches, etc) gained from res towers only (no RFK).
<!--quoteo(post=1741727:date=Dec 1 2009, 12:20 AM:name=RobB)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobB @ Dec 1 2009, 12:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1741727"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Instead of RFK I'd like to see a growing resgain the longer a tower's active.
It would speed up the game (RFK's role) because of increased rates from well defended towers, put action into the round because of increased patrols (you have to take down the enemy's tower fast enough) and rewards a team for harassing the enemy's funding.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
interesting idea. you could have certain thresholds. i.e. res tower A currently harvests at a rate of m/second and has now harvested x amount of res, and automatically upgrades to a higher tier of res tower and now harvests at a rate of n/second (n>m); complete with visual cues, and the commander should be able to see how much each tower has harvested so far. alternatively you could have the res towers be upgradeable after that certain threshold -> more durable, and higher res gain, but does have a cost associated with it.
If both marines and aliens keep the res (half map each) alien side has the favor. Why because they do not need res to heal or give adreline. They do not have to use this res on upgrades except chambers which can be done by 1 skulk early game. That was bad comparison but my point is you cant compare alien res control and marine res control they are that different.
RFK is a must, seriously we are already down to 1 possible start hive! This is going to be less than cs if we keep deleting factors like these. Obviously there are more benefits than losses here.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->we are already down to 1 possible start hive!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
...for now.