The RTS element
Raneman
Join Date: 2010-01-07 Member: 69962Members
Join Date: 2010-01-07 Member: 69962Members
Why is it that NS2 has such a weak RTS element? There is nothing you can do any more to stop aliens or marines from rolling out big rape weapons, as even if you destroy their second hive or whatever, everything costs so little resources you absolutely cannot stop anything.
In NS1 Fade and Onos were a rare sight that required investment. In NS2 there are usually like 5 fade and 4 onos 15 mins into the game.
What happened?
In NS1 Fade and Onos were a rare sight that required investment. In NS2 there are usually like 5 fade and 4 onos 15 mins into the game.
What happened?
Comments
In NS1 Fade and Onos were a rare sight that required investment. In NS2 there are usually like 5 fade and 4 onos 15 mins into the game.
What happened?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
IMO the biggest change is that there is no Res sink. In NS1 you had 2 people dropping chambers at start, others building RTs, and more use of lerks. Now basically everyone saves for onos and fade. Even the people who gorge only spend 10 Res.
That said, they seem to be aware of both issues (fast life forms, the explosions) and are working on them. I think the next build reduces starting PRes for instance, which should change the timing.
Furthermore, the more "rare sights" a game has, the less varied the game is overall (and the less tactical options there are available).
We actually had to TEMPORARILY revert the starting PRes back to the current amount of 25. The initial amount we tried out was too low, and we didn't have enough time to properly test (and possibly deal with recosting of stuff to compensate) a different amount for this patch. But lower PRes is still very much on the table, and we'll be trying out some different numbers.
--Cory
UWE really needs to follow the design of SC2 a lot more imo. Game play is more important then keep things asymmetric.
SC2 is very symmetric at its core gameplay level. NS2 isn't and i feel that this is the major problem. All tho i feel that the game is far improved from older builds. I'm not sure if its really headed in the right direction. The FPS aspects are pretty good and i feel that is really all UWE has be working on for a while now. That and the game engine and performance. So many once they get past the bad performance they can retool the rts game play. I feel there needs to be more commander controlled units as well. I want commander controlled units i can take to battle.
UWE really needs to follow the design of SC2 a lot more imo. Game play is more important then keep things asymmetric.
SC2 is very symmetric at its core gameplay level. NS2 isn't and i feel that this is the major problem. All tho i feel that the game is far improved from older builds. I'm not sure if its really headed in the right direction. The FPS aspects are pretty good and i feel that is really all UWE has be working on for a while now. That and the game engine and performance. So many once they get past the bad performance they can retool the rts game play. I feel there needs to be more commander controlled units as well. I want commander controlled units i can take to battle.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Asymmetry is a great feature of Natural Selection. Would be quite boring to live without it.
I do think that NS2 needs some more res sinks though. With alien upgrades being free and gorge structures being free, there is no res sink besides rushing for your chosen lifeform.
I do think that NS2 needs some more res sinks though. With alien upgrades being free and gorge structures being free, there is no res sink besides rushing for your chosen lifeform.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed, asymmetry was and is what draws me to NS
Furthermore, the more "rare sights" a game has, the less varied the game is overall (and the less tactical options there are available).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Gosh, it must be opposite day.
An impressive moment is one that is unique, furthermore the moment isn't impressive if effort isn't put into making it unique. Pretty logical.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thank you for not just slamming that one in, cause that would have broken so much.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What happened?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Short answer: the new resource system. It makes trading army for tech and economy problematic. Imagine starcraft: you mine minerals, minerals go into two pools, one for building command centers, the other for building marines, that would be stupid right?. It's not exactly this situation in NS2 though, but that's the general idea.
the reason ns1 didnt have the problem was because aliens had to build their own things with the same res not a secondary for buildings, letting a few players save for fade and onos which, those few lifeforms game teh marines issues, but now we have a typical 8v8 and 4-5 onos players, marines have 0! chance at fighting that, ive seen 4 marines pump clip after clip while he sits in the base and we cant kill it. and I personally thing the stomp should not effect anything but marines and arcs.. having 2 onos stomp ips one after another is a win while skulks take out the CC or IPs
The equivalent in the Starcraft games is<a href="http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Chrono_Boost" target="_blank"> chrono boost</a>, which can only be used on things that are already built (not things that are building). Do you see where I'm going with this?
<!--quoteo(post=1936770:date=May 17 2012, 05:20 PM:name=Arkahm719)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Arkahm719 @ May 17 2012, 05:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1936770"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->having 2 onos stomp ips one after another is a win while skulks take out the CC or IPs<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
why do you have all your IPs in range of 2 stomps at the point in the game where you're against onos? to let this happen, you make mistakes as a player that have very little to do with the game's design
We tried this. If the game lasted too long it went back to skulks vs. upgraded rifles and armor which sucked horribly.
So far NS2's commanding an improvement over NS1's but there's still room to grow. That said, I'm not sure how much room without looking at the redesign of some aspects of NS2 but even if NS2 went retail the way it is now, speaking only from the RTS aspect, I'd feel confident saying UWE improved the experience over NS1.
What happened?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Resources were replaced with P-res and T-res and you always get them in fixed proportion. There is no trade-off between structures and units.
In effect, everybody is saving for fade/onos because going gorge and getting an RT, a hive or upgrade chambers is not possible/necessary.
I think you have to at least loosely link P-res and T-res via some method. There has to be a trade-off between getting upgrades/structures or getting weapons/units rather than always getting both at the same time.
There are many ways you could do this. One of the more convenient variants I can think of would be a kind of "wage" slider that the comm has control over. At the right extreme, only T-res is generated. At the left extreme, only P-res is generated.
That said, they seem to be aware of both issues (fast life forms, the explosions) and are working on them. I think the next build reduces starting PRes for instance, which should change the timing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, the problem is the alien commander.
No gorges needed to drop things for res sinks because of the commander.
I think everyone knows this, and I don't think there are any ways to fix it with the current system, but there's no way they are even going to remove the alien commander, so what can we do?
Just as a little interesting side note with SC2 mechanics, as far as I've understood the protoss building build times are almost overboard to compensate the chronoboost. It makes protoss pretty damn rigid in some ways.
For example the terran 1-1-1 builds pretty much abuse the fact that protoss is so committed to building related techs compared to terran. Terran goes everywhere in the tech tree, forcing multiple tech reactions from toss and then hits before toss can get any of them running smoothly. Right now the matchup seems to be in manageable shape, but I think they've been making pretty big sacrifices in potential gameplay awesomeness and variation to contain all the volatility in the gameplay.
So the enemy team can scout and focus specifically a type of resources depending on the situation.
And the comm would also need to think a bit before dropping an extractor type or the other.
Then the pres and tres should be renamed to make it clear that it's something different and not just two pools of the same resource.
Short answer: the new resource system. It makes trading army for tech and economy problematic. Imagine starcraft: you mine minerals, minerals go into two pools, one for building command centers, the other for building marines, that would be stupid right?. It's not exactly this situation in NS2 though, but that's the general idea.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Except that in an RTS game you have one player, the commander. NS you have many players, only one of which is commander. Need to reduce the power this one person has, while not diminishing his important role, and grant autonomy to all players.
UWEs aim seems to be to have all alien lifeforms fill extremely specific roles so that going all onos is a negative. Clearly we have not reached this point yet.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yep the economy and pacing are very much in development still. The amount and timing of the various lifeforms and tech is still being worked on.
We aren't sure about lowering the starting res though, it's something that we're still thinking about and experimenting with, but I wouldn't say it's expected to go in.
yeah, it's the unit building that really benefits (beyond the baseline) from chronos
it's not supposed to be a super-powerful mechanic (the same way spawn larva isn't)
at least nano-construct succeeds in that way :)
That sounds like it would create a lot more issues though.
Aliens just need some resource sinks
<ul><li>Evolutions cost pres again</li><li>Augmentations cost pres like evolutions</li></ul>
Augmentations are such devastating abilities that it's silly they be free after the relatively small cost to research them.
Now, this is not a fatal flaw, you just need to add enough worthwhile res sinks for aliens that they are FORCED to spend some pres before reaching end-game.
A proposal I liked was for aliens to pay a pres price to unlock (free) upgrades, with each upgrade being in two steps; the first step would be for all lifeforms, the second step for a specific lifeform. So you would pay 10 pres for carapace (general), another 10 pres for carapace specialization (Skulk), another 10 pres for carapace spec (Onos).
So if you wanted to go early Onos, it would be a weaker one, because you hadn't paid the 20 pres to get the full onos carapace upgrade (+20 pres for full celerity). Or you could pay the 10 pres for general carapace early so your Skulk play would improve, but then the Onos would be 10 pres late (and still without a full carapace).
Would be an effective sink of alien pres, for sure.