Nano Construct
rantology
Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
<div class="IPBDescription">ever gonna get changed?</div>So today I was in a mineshaft game, Rines had somehow gotten cave (they had JPs at this point, ~20min+ into the game) and they had the usual, CC/armory/PG up. We probably spent about 5-10 minutes wearing them/the pg down and we finally kill the phase gate ! only 2 JPs left and cave is ours right!? NOPE. 1 of the JPs nanoconstucted a new phase gate up before we could even get across the room to him and we were back to square one. (this is just one of many many many examples)
Seriously will this ever get changed? There's no way a 400% building speed bonus can be considered balanced at any point in the game. It still gets spammed on cooldown. Marines still use it to build every single building.
The build bonus needs to change to 50-100% at most, 400% is hilariously imbalanced. 3 t-res cost and a 6 sec cooldown is hilariously trivial. The current build times for the structures in NS2 are not balanced around nano construct. No, giving it a longer cooldown will not solve the problem. No, making it cost more will not solve the problem (though I guess it might help a little).
(figured I would make a nano-construct thread to go with the nano-shield thread- both abilities are hugely problematic UWE!)
Seriously will this ever get changed? There's no way a 400% building speed bonus can be considered balanced at any point in the game. It still gets spammed on cooldown. Marines still use it to build every single building.
The build bonus needs to change to 50-100% at most, 400% is hilariously imbalanced. 3 t-res cost and a 6 sec cooldown is hilariously trivial. The current build times for the structures in NS2 are not balanced around nano construct. No, giving it a longer cooldown will not solve the problem. No, making it cost more will not solve the problem (though I guess it might help a little).
(figured I would make a nano-construct thread to go with the nano-shield thread- both abilities are hugely problematic UWE!)
Comments
I agree that its way too fast and used on cd most of the time!
I couldn't comment on competitive balance, but it seems to me however that pub game balance hinges upon keeping up with an inherently faster alien economy + free hydras and nanoconstruct seems to work in helping get those 50% win rates especially on smaller maps like summit where you can get locked in pretty quickly.
+1
If we need to build a pg in a hurry there should be some off set or compromise, 3 T-Res is hardly a compromise when it means that 1 marine can build as quickly as 4 marines.
If there are 2 marines in say flight then they should need to make a choice between fast build or covering the other player.
Now all they need is to be nano'd and that 1 marine can build twice as fast as if they had both been building (and not allowing aliens any advantage as they can still have someone to guard.
Nano protect a building I will accept if you please take off fast build and marine buffs.
Lets not throw out game balance in an effort to ensure everything is asymmetrical, nano construct is a bad metric at 400% increase.
50% at best is all it should offer though I would rather see it elimiated all together and only allow nano on buildings to protect them...or perhaps for macs so they build as quickly as a marine would.
Aliens dont get a way to either build their buildings as fast as marines do, nor do they get a way to protect their buildings or personal.
All these buffs are within melee range and swing the advantage significantly in the marines favor.
from <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=119120&view=findpost&p=1946591" target="_blank">this</a> post
This made it more balanced.
400% buildspeed is just outrageous.
<!--quoteo(post=1952731:date=Jul 20 2012, 12:31 AM:name=Wheeee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wheeee @ Jul 20 2012, 12:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1952731"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i think nano-shield and nano-construct should only be able to be cast on ai units (buildings and macs).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Considering how slowly MACs build, this is a nice idea. I don't think can even use nanoconstruct with MACs atm.
I think what the devs were trying to accomplish was balancing out the fact that aliens have to spend 0 time building at all. If were gonna go back to the same ole "spend 5 mins holding e" crap again then the marines are gonna get slaughtered early game by all the aliens who aren't spending any time building. So now you will have 5 strong aliens hitting your marine team when in general you do a 3/2 split. Now it's going to be 5 aliens vs 3 marines (Due to 2 building RT's).
Okay that is some serious bullcrap. It's already hard enough to get up and hold RT's even with using nano-construct....
If marine needs a buff you can always decrease a bit building times by a small amount like 5%.
I think what the devs were trying to accomplish was balancing out the fact that aliens have to spend 0 time building at all. If were gonna go back to the same ole "spend 5 mins holding e" crap again then the marines are gonna get slaughtered early game by all the aliens who aren't spending any time building. So now you will have 5 strong aliens hitting your marine team when in general you do a 3/2 split. Now it's going to be 5 aliens vs 3 marines (Due to 2 building RT's).
Okay that is some serious bullcrap. It's already hard enough to get up and hold RT's even with using nano-construct....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In theory you are correct but alien buildings build so slow that you need a gorge to speed the building time up if you don't do this you will fall behind the marines in resources very fast. Depending on the size of the teams i see nearly in every game 2 early game gorges. Most times one directly evolves into gorge when the round starts, another one when he died once against marines.
I'm all for it to nerf nano construct a lot.
Maybe there has to be a minimum build time for buildings, so that no matter how many marines are helping to set up a building it always takes 3-5sec. A phasegate going up in 1 sec is just silly.
I think what the devs were trying to accomplish was balancing out the fact that aliens have to spend 0 time building at all. If were gonna go back to the same ole "spend 5 mins holding e" crap again then the marines are gonna get slaughtered early game by all the aliens who aren't spending any time building. So now you will have 5 strong aliens hitting your marine team when in general you do a 3/2 split. Now it's going to be 5 aliens vs 3 marines (Due to 2 building RT's).
Okay that is some serious bullcrap. It's already hard enough to get up and hold RT's even with using nano-construct....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think the structures could build even slower for aliens if theres no gorge building them since i dont think alien comm is going away. Or even require the gorge to build them (but dropped by comm) like the marines have to, just a lot faster to count for the fact that you have to be a gorge to do it. Maybe they start to grow like they do now when the gorge healsprays them once, so it requires more than just the comm.
The only reason why marines are getting slaughtered by big and slow skulks is the hitreg and overall performance problems. I resinstalled ns1 after not playing it for almost 2 years just to feel the difference again. The skulks there are so much smaller and faster and yet, no problem killing them unlike in ns2. They dont bite you from 4 meters away and actually die when you hit them with 10 lmg bullets. Not to mention the awesome movement of the ns1 marine making bite dodging much more effective and fun. Tbh after trying it again, i cant bring myself to play ns2 in its current state.
Never liked nano construct, it takes away the suspense from having to put out your gun for extended period of time. Phasegates definitely go up way too fast with it, when you see the gate being dropped its already too late.
There is a problem with map control ease for sure though. Aliens always have the edge in that department because they don't require players present to take an area. (for the most part, Gorges help speed up the process)
Pretty much.
I think we would get much better gameplay without those abilitys. (some adjustments needed ofc)
Nanoconstruct is currently a no-brainer, you pretty much use it for every rt or forward structure you build... you might as well just implement the cost into structures and make the build faster from start... you more or less NEVER drop stuff without also having the res for a nanoconstruct in dangerous territory. (and for every rt no matter what)
- Nanoconstruct is cast on the structure, rather than the player
- The cost is different based on structure (i.e. higher for PG, lower for arms lab)
As long as you price the TRes cost for each structure correctly, the % faster buildrate shouldn't matter. Though, as a practical matter, I wouldn't mind seeing the buildrate reduced to 200% so that the TRes cost doesn't have to be astronomical to balance.
- Nanoconstruct is cast on the structure, rather than the player
- The cost is different based on structure (i.e. higher for PG, lower for arms lab)
As long as you price the TRes cost for each structure correctly, the % faster buildrate shouldn't matter. Though, as a practical matter, I wouldn't mind seeing the buildrate reduced to 200% so that the TRes cost doesn't have to be astronomical to balance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
200% is still way too much. It should be, like, 50% if it is not flat out removed.
Building structures is one of the main disadvantages for marines. If you have two players securing an RT then one builds and one covers. With nanobuild, it is up almost instantly. This destroys the incentive for aliens to attack RTs because it takes an alien longer about 10x longer to destroy the RT than it takes a marine to rebuild it. On top of the fact that the RT pays itsself off so quickly, RTs become less and less important for marines to protect as they can simply rebuild them.
On forward bases, nanoconstruct creates a second problem. Forward phase gates and armories are incredibly huge advantages for the marine teams if they are able to get them up. This time period where the marines are setting up and building their forward outpost is where they are vulnerable. Nanoconstruct removes that vulnerability and allows marines to set up incredibly strong footholds anywhere on the map in less than 10 seconds.
Mostly this all boils down to the modifier. 400% on anything, but specially a core mechanic of one of the factions, is going to cause problems. 400% is such an ungodly high modifier. If you want a tres vs speed investment, you should have it set much lower -- to 50%. Even cutting off 1/3 of the build time off a critical structure is important and worth the 3 tres. But it's not something you spam on every single building like you currently see with any insanely high modifier nanobuild.
I'm for just removing it, though. It makes building RTs and forward bases trivial time investments.
What is the source of the problem do you think? I am pretty amazed that the devs would add in nano-construct if they knew the problem and how to fix it. It feels to me like they aren't even sure what the problem is, so they added this in the meantime. It's almost a slap in the face to the classic NS formula to be honest. But as the current alien economy stands... nano construct is essential... I have been saying it for months, but alien expansion rate is incredibly absurd. Tons of alien tech and structures are far too powerful for their cost as well. UWE has never seriously addressed this and it appears to me they have no intentions to fix this extremely broken aspect of the game... (Nano-construct? Give me a break)
I have always been a strong advocate for bringing back the early game and resource collection time. The beginning of the game should be centered around building infrastructure, not combat.
There is no such thing as early game in NS2, you just go out of base guns blazing, and it really is damaging the fine tuned balance that COULD be in this game.
This is a touchy subject for me, because I have never had a problem with building or welding things. Maybe the community cried and complained about how much time is spent building? Boo hoo, because adding nano-construct is a gigantic band-aid. There are some definite things that need to be tweaked in regards to build time, such as the robotics factory. Also phase gates should be able to be built fairly quickly but not instantaneously.
All they need to do is tweak the build time of cysts, and harvesters so the expansion isn't so lightning quick. Or even better... they might also flirt with the idea of making cysts cost more or having harvesters cost more, because if the aliens expansion isn't touched it won't matter how long things take to build they will eventually have 6-8 harvesters up in no time if marines can't pressure. I can have 8 RT's up in docking within 3 mins into the game. All my team had to do was abuse the hitreg with skulks by jumping like crazy and keeping the marines out of our territory. Not to mention once marines get into alien territory they more than likely will be slaughtered.
<!--sizeo:6--><span style="font-size:24pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Early game needs to be much more difficult for the aliens and should require a lot more teamwork</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->. Right now it's just run out of base and abuse skulk movement till you have enough res for a fade in 5 mins. It's way too easy. But whatever these points have been brought up by many people in the community and they are still being ignored and fixed with band-aids like nano-construct.
If I can have RT's building in maintenance, ballcourt, and locker rooms, plus my already built base RT, and have cysts all the way into onos bar, east wing and through tram departures by the time the marines have only gotten into terminal from MS in cafe then there is a serious problem. This was with random pub people too so nothing special in regards to team stacking. Yeah I had to hold myself back from using coarse language there.