I assume this is being worked on, because it is a pretty glaring and game ruining problem. The aliens can have double the number of kills the marines have, and still have lost way more res to being dead. The system really should be based on the total number of eggs. That way there isn't a sudden harsh punishment because the aliens just happened to die at the same time, and it also means something for marines to attack and destroy eggs in hive rooms.
A dead player should START the wave, being however long depending on the environment, counting down till respawn. Any player killed within a given spawn wave will respawn with the rest of the players waiting in that queue. Wave times could lengthen or shorten with the number of hives... lots of variables for the devs to look at here, but this is most stream lined for the players benefit.
It should be addressed pretty soon - the alien spawns were altered a few builds ago to even balance a bit, to counter spawncamping marines on small servers.
As games have gotten larger, it has revealed issues with alien spawn timing. This is a little hard for us to test internally, but I've tweaked the spawn times a bit for 218 to try to address this (reduced egg spawn times by 2 seconds). We'll see how it works out.
<!--quoteo(post=1970971:date=Sep 4 2012, 01:57 PM:name=Flayra)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Flayra @ Sep 4 2012, 01:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970971"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As games have gotten larger, it has revealed issues with alien spawn timing. This is a little hard for us to test internally, but I've tweaked the spawn times a bit for 218 to try to address this (reduced egg spawn times by 2 seconds). We'll see how it works out.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I think that's missing the point. It's not so much the egg creation rate, but the wave spawn system that's the issue. No matter how many eggs you have, aliens can't spawn more than 3 players at a time.
Wave size needs to become 1/2 team size instead of being fixed at 3.
<!--quoteo(post=1970983:date=Sep 4 2012, 12:20 PM:name=Typhon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Typhon @ Sep 4 2012, 12:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970983"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think that's missing the point. It's not so much the egg creation rate, but the wave spawn system that's the issue. No matter how many eggs you have, aliens can't spawn more than 3 players at a time.
Wave size needs to become 1/2 team size instead of being fixed at 3.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hm I always assumed wave was everyone who was dead. Whats the point of a limit?
<!--quoteo(post=1970990:date=Sep 4 2012, 08:35 PM:name=TimMc)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TimMc @ Sep 4 2012, 08:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970990"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hm I always assumed wave was everyone who was dead. Whats the point of a limit?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Spawning everyone back isn't fair. That's essentially an alien beacon.
Not entirely. Aliens would still be egg bound. No eggs = no respawn, if the aliens die to much and have no eggs they would still respawn slow. And aliens respawn as skulks without upgrades. Marines still spawn with armor and weapon upgrades.
<!--quoteo(post=1970993:date=Sep 4 2012, 12:41 PM:name=Nakorson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Nakorson @ Sep 4 2012, 12:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970993"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not entirely. Aliens would still be egg bound. No eggs = no respawn, if the aliens die to much and have no eggs they would still respawn slow. And aliens respawn as skulks without upgrades. Marines still spawn with armor and weapon upgrades.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly. Dying too often leads to no eggs. Once marines have 3 CCs, with 2 IPs each (so equivalent to 3 hives) then they will start respawning the entire team instantly too.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
yep, i agree with that. more hives -> more eggs -> bigger spawn waves. right now there are multiple waves with max sizes, which is basically the same except that egg generation scales with player count (so that max wave size is basically rendering the egg generation scaling useless). when the aliens constantly die, they run out of eggs and you have smaller waves. on the other hand, if aliens play passive, wait until enough eggs have been generated, and then push all at once and die, they can use this as a tactical advantage and spawn back all together. sounds to me like a valid strategy.
I still feel like egg spawning and wave spawning are two conflicting systems that sometimes clash together with wacky results. Spawning as a wave doesn't even force aliens to coordinate together - they still get separated very easily as skulks, some of them might gestate after spawning while some won't, etc. Personally I think the system should be simple: if an egg is available, you can spawn in it after a short minimum delay, and that's that. The number of available eggs should be visible somewhere so players are conscious of the effect their deaths are having on it.
<!--quoteo(post=1970993:date=Sep 4 2012, 08:41 PM:name=Nakorson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Nakorson @ Sep 4 2012, 08:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970993"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not entirely. Aliens would still be egg bound. No eggs = no respawn, if the aliens die to much and have no eggs they would still respawn slow. And aliens respawn as skulks without upgrades. Marines still spawn with armor and weapon upgrades.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The egg restriction would be overcome by a single shift. You may think that is a valid use for a shift, and I would be inclined to agree, but its too simple. Drop shift drop 10 eggs, cheap as hell, problem solved. There would need to be some sort of complicated system put in place to prevent aliens from always mass wave spawning back, and I kinda like the way shift eggs work currently.
I think the limit should remain 3, maaaaybe it should scale somewhat with player count, but I don't see the need. What I think should happen is the waiting time should be directly affected by the number of eggs available. More eggs, faster spawn time. That way, if 5 skulks die during a rush, they won't be immediately punished with massive wait times, but if they continue to do it, they will be in danger of running out of eggs. The comm can also choose to place eggs with shifts, but it won't have as big an impact as 1 egg = 1 alien. The respawn rate of eggs should then scale with players.
<!--quoteo(post=1971014:date=Sep 4 2012, 01:14 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Sep 4 2012, 01:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1971014"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The egg restriction would be overcome by a single shift. You may think that is a valid use for a shift, and I would be inclined to agree, but its too simple. Drop shift drop 10 eggs, cheap as hell, problem solved. There would need to be some sort of complicated system put in place to prevent aliens from always mass wave spawning back, and I kinda like the way shift eggs work currently.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Increase cost of new eggs and its fine. Plus we don't see enough shifts anyway, giving people a reason to build them besides in last moments of the game would be nice.
While I have seen spawn times up to 22 seconds this does not include the "Waiting to spawn" unknown time. I have seen 2 different spawn time counters, the one with and with-out a timer. Why is there two? Why does a player get "Waiting to spawn" (for 1 to 25 seconds or more) and another "Waiting to spawn (1 to 22 seconds)".
There is definitely something wrong when the Marines are mass respawning after 7 seconds, but the Kahraa are sitting for over 30 waiting for the game to let them use the eggs they have saved up. I like the idea of just spawning instantly when eggs are available. To tweak the spawn times, you just tweak the eggs, and Shift's ability can be as strong or weak as you make the numbers for it.
<!--quoteo(post=1971049:date=Sep 4 2012, 02:01 PM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Sep 4 2012, 02:01 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1971049"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There is definitely something wrong when the Marines are mass respawning after 7 seconds,<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly. Waiting is boring. Marines tend to never wait to spawn.
If there is some balance issue that would make aliens OP if this were the case, then balance in a different way.
Eggs are almost never the problem with spawning as aliens unless they're camping your hive. The problem is the 3 alien per wave cap. When you have 10+ players then it is very easy to wind up with 5+ players dead at once. This leads to insane spawn timers that are typically 2-3x that of the marines. There are almost always eggs available, but the wave spawn is what limits the respawns.
I wish aliens worked more on eggs and less on the wave spawn mechanic. That way you'd be able to build up eggs by not dying for a while and then have faster respawns if you started dying a lot. It also gives incentive to the marines to sneak in and shoot down a few eggs. You're lowering their egg bank which can lead to longer respawns when your team pushes. Right now eggs are just meaningless.
Nothing gets my rocks off more when I'm sitting in respawn for nearly a minute watching 'ready to spawn- haha jk- spawning in 16' pop back up over and over, then I see the same 4-5 marines I just killed back up in less than half that time.
I avoid 24 player servers like the plague because of this god awful respawn system. Egg limit isn't even the problem. How did you ever arrive to that conclusion? I'm going to need to use two hands for this facepalm.
Wave spawn is a cool idea and works great in a 6v6 game but anything else, it's just not working. So in a 16v16 map there is a good chance that some aliens could very well be looking at a 1 min + respawn time while most marines will never see more than a 20 second respawn time.
<!--quoteo(post=1971115:date=Sep 4 2012, 04:18 PM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fanatic @ Sep 4 2012, 04:18 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1971115"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Wave spawn is a universally terrible idea.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> To be honest, I forget why it was implemented in the first place.
<!--quoteo(post=1970971:date=Sep 5 2012, 04:57 AM:name=Flayra)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Flayra @ Sep 5 2012, 04:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970971"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As games have gotten larger, it has revealed issues with alien spawn timing. This is a little hard for us to test internally, but I've tweaked the spawn times a bit for 218 to try to address this (reduced egg spawn times by 2 seconds). We'll see how it works out.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Has the hard cap of 3 been removed? This could easily be replaced with a % of the marine numbers ie 50% of 12v12 is 6 so max wave size is 6. This would allow for scaling to help keep the spawn system more fluid to the server numbers.
<!--quoteo(post=1971350:date=Sep 5 2012, 01:23 AM:name=RMJ)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RMJ @ Sep 5 2012, 01:23 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1971350"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->6V6 games wtf? does anyone play games that small? surely the game isnt made or balanced around that small size? is it because of consoles or what?.
why would you play or balance game around anything less than 12 vs 12.
Game must be down right boring and empty maps at 6 v 6.
Infact game should be balanced for more players like 16 vs 16. that would be amazing, action everywhere.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
6v6 puts a massive emphasis on actual player skill and player responsibility, thus it is the most used format for competitive gameplay.
<!--quoteo(post=1971362:date=Sep 5 2012, 12:30 PM:name=antacid)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (antacid @ Sep 5 2012, 12:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1971362"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->6v6 puts a massive emphasis on actual player skill and player responsibility, thus it is the most used format for competitive gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> 6 v 6 is legacy from old HL days, TFC, CS, DoD..until the BF series 6 v 6 was all you would see (dont recall bf42 ladder before NS over here in aus). Reality is they try to balance it for all player sizes but the core player groups used to teh comp 6 v 6 and I assume most of the testing has been done in smaller numbers (as is easier to co-ordinate...ask anyone who has tried to run a BF team which has upwards of 12 a side...).
So I can understand how the 3 cap came in...but considering the desired scaling cant see why this was not changed to a variable...static numbers blow for something like this. You dont want 5 aliens spawning at once ins 5v5 game...but you do in a 10 v 10 game.
It's not an egg-respawn problem. It's a problem of the cap to max 3 per wave. This cap was introduced shortly after the wave spawning was introduced. As far as I remember the cause was the follow: Good alien teams attacked the marine base together. All skulks died at nearly equal time. And respawned together in the next wave. Than they all attacked the marine base again. 5-7 skulks, all rushing the CC could end the game in minutes. And that is what happened. Many games ended because of CC-rushes. If the marines could hold out for 2 or 3 waves, the aliens got egg-locked and the rushing ended. (= marines could expand.)
At this time, the aliens got already some extractors while the marines were all in the base to defend. So they introduced the max cap of 3 per wave to lessen the effectiveness of early CC-rushs. I think this was the wrong decision.
The problem was not, that skulks in a big wave are very powerful. (They are even in this build.) But by breaking up the waves, you don't see them rushing in big groups anymore on pubs. So the main problem isn't solved. You just discouraged the pub-players to play together in big groups. (The opposite was why wave spawning was introduced at first. To make it easier for pubs to play together in a team of aliens.)
I really miss those times, where 5 skulks rushed at you along a hallway. It was like in the movies. But anyway, it was to strong and had to be tweaked. I think another more dynamic tweak could have fixed it too. (The mentioned times are open to balance!):
<u>New Alien Spawn-System</u><ul><li>Wave spawning for aliens with a 15 seconds timer. (No maximum cap on simultaneous spawns!)</li><li>This means, as soon as the first alien dies, the clock begins ticking. All aliens that die after that, have to wait only for this clock.</li><li>For every alien that dies, the wave spawn-time goes up 1 second. (To a maximum of 25 seconds)</li><li>Every 30 seconds the wave spawn-time is reduced by 1 second. (To a minimum of 5 seconds)</li></ul>
If you balance the numbers right, you can stop the aliens from constantly rushing. You have a reliable and easy to understand spawn system. (Players see that the time goes up by one second when an alien dies.) You never have to wait longer than the max-spawn time. In most cases you will even spawn earlier, because you died short before a new wave.
Another change is needed to the egg-respawning problem. In builds where eggs mattered and egg-locks wasn't happening so scarce, it was a real problem. But the solution is easy: For every dieing alien, there is a new egg generated at the hive. This way, you are sure to get an egg, but the marines can deny it (during a hive rush) by killing the eggs. This is on top of the "hive creates 1 egg every x seconds"-rule. And it even allows you to select you egg to spawn while you wait for spawning.
Please, no _Necro_. If we need to tweak spawning, we can do it with the eggs. I see no reason why we need two arbitrary wait periods for lifeform spawning.
Comments
And yes, it's working pretty bad right now. Having 2 hives and taking 30sec to spawn just because a bunch of guys died the same time is not cool. :|
A dead player should START the wave, being however long depending on the environment, counting down till respawn. Any player killed within a given spawn wave will respawn with the rest of the players waiting in that queue. Wave times could lengthen or shorten with the number of hives... lots of variables for the devs to look at here, but this is most stream lined for the players benefit.
not so hard :)
I think that's missing the point. It's not so much the egg creation rate, but the wave spawn system that's the issue. No matter how many eggs you have, aliens can't spawn more than 3 players at a time.
Wave size needs to become 1/2 team size instead of being fixed at 3.
Wave size needs to become 1/2 team size instead of being fixed at 3.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hm I always assumed wave was everyone who was dead. Whats the point of a limit?
Spawning everyone back isn't fair. That's essentially an alien beacon.
Not entirely. Aliens would still be egg bound. No eggs = no respawn, if the aliens die to much and have no eggs they would still respawn slow. And aliens respawn as skulks without upgrades. Marines still spawn with armor and weapon upgrades.
Exactly. Dying too often leads to no eggs. Once marines have 3 CCs, with 2 IPs each (so equivalent to 3 hives) then they will start respawning the entire team instantly too.
The egg restriction would be overcome by a single shift. You may think that is a valid use for a shift, and I would be inclined to agree, but its too simple. Drop shift drop 10 eggs, cheap as hell, problem solved. There would need to be some sort of complicated system put in place to prevent aliens from always mass wave spawning back, and I kinda like the way shift eggs work currently.
I think the limit should remain 3, maaaaybe it should scale somewhat with player count, but I don't see the need. What I think should happen is the waiting time should be directly affected by the number of eggs available. More eggs, faster spawn time. That way, if 5 skulks die during a rush, they won't be immediately punished with massive wait times, but if they continue to do it, they will be in danger of running out of eggs. The comm can also choose to place eggs with shifts, but it won't have as big an impact as 1 egg = 1 alien. The respawn rate of eggs should then scale with players.
Increase cost of new eggs and its fine. Plus we don't see enough shifts anyway, giving people a reason to build them besides in last moments of the game would be nice.
Exactly. Waiting is boring. Marines tend to never wait to spawn.
If there is some balance issue that would make aliens OP if this were the case, then balance in a different way.
I wish aliens worked more on eggs and less on the wave spawn mechanic. That way you'd be able to build up eggs by not dying for a while and then have faster respawns if you started dying a lot. It also gives incentive to the marines to sneak in and shoot down a few eggs. You're lowering their egg bank which can lead to longer respawns when your team pushes. Right now eggs are just meaningless.
I avoid 24 player servers like the plague because of this god awful respawn system. Egg limit isn't even the problem. How did you ever arrive to that conclusion? I'm going to need to use two hands for this facepalm.
...what?
No.
Wave spawn is a universally terrible idea.
To be honest, I forget why it was implemented in the first place.
Has the hard cap of 3 been removed?
This could easily be replaced with a % of the marine numbers ie 50% of 12v12 is 6 so max wave size is 6.
This would allow for scaling to help keep the spawn system more fluid to the server numbers.
why would you play or balance game around anything less than 12 vs 12.
Game must be down right boring and empty maps at 6 v 6.
Infact game should be balanced for more players like 16 vs 16. that would be amazing, action everywhere.
why would you play or balance game around anything less than 12 vs 12.
Game must be down right boring and empty maps at 6 v 6.
Infact game should be balanced for more players like 16 vs 16. that would be amazing, action everywhere.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
6v6 puts a massive emphasis on actual player skill and player responsibility, thus it is the most used format for competitive gameplay.
6 v 6 is legacy from old HL days, TFC, CS, DoD..until the BF series 6 v 6 was all you would see (dont recall bf42 ladder before NS over here in aus).
Reality is they try to balance it for all player sizes but the core player groups used to teh comp 6 v 6 and I assume most of the testing has been done in smaller numbers (as is easier to co-ordinate...ask anyone who has tried to run a BF team which has upwards of 12 a side...).
So I can understand how the 3 cap came in...but considering the desired scaling cant see why this was not changed to a variable...static numbers blow for something like this.
You dont want 5 aliens spawning at once ins 5v5 game...but you do in a 10 v 10 game.
This cap was introduced shortly after the wave spawning was introduced. As far as I remember the cause was the follow:
Good alien teams attacked the marine base together. All skulks died at nearly equal time. And respawned together in the next wave. Than they all attacked the marine base again. 5-7 skulks, all rushing the CC could end the game in minutes. And that is what happened. Many games ended because of CC-rushes. If the marines could hold out for 2 or 3 waves, the aliens got egg-locked and the rushing ended. (= marines could expand.)
At this time, the aliens got already some extractors while the marines were all in the base to defend. So they introduced the max cap of 3 per wave to lessen the effectiveness of early CC-rushs. I think this was the wrong decision.
The problem was not, that skulks in a big wave are very powerful. (They are even in this build.) But by breaking up the waves, you don't see them rushing in big groups anymore on pubs. So the main problem isn't solved. You just discouraged the pub-players to play together in big groups. (The opposite was why wave spawning was introduced at first. To make it easier for pubs to play together in a team of aliens.)
I really miss those times, where 5 skulks rushed at you along a hallway. It was like in the movies. But anyway, it was to strong and had to be tweaked. I think another more dynamic tweak could have fixed it too. (The mentioned times are open to balance!):
<u>New Alien Spawn-System</u><ul><li>Wave spawning for aliens with a 15 seconds timer. (No maximum cap on simultaneous spawns!)</li><li>This means, as soon as the first alien dies, the clock begins ticking. All aliens that die after that, have to wait only for this clock.</li><li>For every alien that dies, the wave spawn-time goes up 1 second. (To a maximum of 25 seconds)</li><li>Every 30 seconds the wave spawn-time is reduced by 1 second. (To a minimum of 5 seconds)</li></ul>
If you balance the numbers right, you can stop the aliens from constantly rushing. You have a reliable and easy to understand spawn system. (Players see that the time goes up by one second when an alien dies.) You never have to wait longer than the max-spawn time. In most cases you will even spawn earlier, because you died short before a new wave.
Another change is needed to the egg-respawning problem. In builds where eggs mattered and egg-locks wasn't happening so scarce, it was a real problem. But the solution is easy: For every dieing alien, there is a new egg generated at the hive. This way, you are sure to get an egg, but the marines can deny it (during a hive rush) by killing the eggs.
This is on top of the "hive creates 1 egg every x seconds"-rule. And it even allows you to select you egg to spawn while you wait for spawning.