Sentries, Post 221.

zeep · September 2012

<div class="IPBDescription">Since the other thread got locked for no reason.</div>That was pretty harsh locking the topic and not giving the many posters the opportunity to reply to your statement flayra. There were many constructive posts. Some with good suggestions, even possible solutions.
I'm pretty sure now you don't care but allow us to reply anyway.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (flayra)</div><div class='quotemain'>We don't have time to improve sentries for v1.0, but we'll revisit them shortly thereafter.

The most important thing to me is not to turn NS2 into a game of "players shooting structures". We saw this repeatedly with sentries and it is devastating to pub play. It's critical to me that this doesn't happen. The extra depth from sentries will be nice one day, but isn't nearly as important.</div>
Are marines shooting whips etc not 'players shooting structures' then?

I understand UWE doesn't have time to do something with sentries before 1.0. But what are your plans with sentries in the long run? I mean if you don't want the ability for marines to build defenses, other than the firecracker mines that do occasional damage.

Xarius · September 2012

Yea, it's an argument that doesn't hold much weight in light of the choices given to the alien side. But nobody (rightly) complains about having to focus down hydras and whips, simply because it's an important part of the strategic game, and without it aliens would probably be even more crippled on defence. (Not to mention marines have a lot of options to deal with them) So why don't they want marines to have sentries? Put in a hardcap until post 1.0 for all I care, but that way at least we wouldn't have an entire good portion of the marine's tech invalidated at release.

Just looking forward to all those games at release where new commanders build sentries because they don't yet realise how terrible they are, and veteran players flaming them over it. Yea, that seems to be the 'solution' UWE prefers over having a couple of sentries to focus down as aliens. (Which mind you would be incredibly easy with the bilebomb back on gorge)

Keeping the current sentries in the game will probably cause a lot more harm (new commanders getting flamed, games being thrown, etc) than a couple of proper NS 1 type sentries ever would.

extollo · September 2012

with all this talk of weak sentries i was on a pub where the comm had put 6-8 at a choke point in docking and used them as defensive structures. well i was feeling brave as a skulk & figured i'd just go up and munch them ... needless to say i died - death by peashooter :lol:

i think the diff with whips is one more of psychology. new pub marine comms just naturally think they need to buy and fortify areas with sentries, unlike whips that are a new concept & also dont have the same type of area denial that a long range shooting sentry would.

ie. sentries are more likely to be spammed.

but re: paragraph 1. - comms will still spam them if they have the res. - at least they are less of a chore to clear out (as long as you dont walk straight into the line of fire of 8 of them :) ).

MistenTH · September 2012

Sentries should be made viable to the point that 2 of them can stop a skulk from killing the PG or Power Node without any significant effort.

Significant effort meaning at least 2 players, a stronger lifeform, or a circle-strafing skulk to jam tracking of 1 of the turrets, but will still require at least 1 death to take it down solo.

To prevent spamming, any 1 of various soft capping methods work - my favourite is efficiency.

1 Turret (100 DPS), 2 Turret (200 DPS), 3 Turret (90% Eff, 270 DPS), 4 Turret (80% Eff, 320 DPS), 5 Turret (70% Eff, 350 DPS), 6 Turret (60% Eff, 360 DPS). 7 Turret (50% Eff, 350 DPS).

A single suicide BB gorge will easily win res attrition war anyways.

Jer9-Carver · September 2012

I think the big difference with sentries and whips is that one is ranged and the other melee-based.
If you make sentries more powerful, you're going to end up with a spamming problem. Place a lot of sentries in a room and it basically become alien-proof. they'll be able to track everything from distance and shoot off aliens that try to bite down a fellow sentry. With whips it's a completely different story, they're melee-based. Marines have to get close to get damage or by reflection of their own grenade. Spamming a whole room with whips is not as effective as spamming a whole room with sentries, since marines have the ability to walk by them without getting hurt or damaging them in some way without getting hurt. And that's the problem with sentries. Make them too dangerous and you can lockdown entire rooms with them. Make them too passive and they become useless.

Squeal_Like_A_Pig · September 2012

The other thread was not locked for "no reason".

The game director himself posted in the thread to tell you that we don't think sentries are fine as they are, but there is not enough time to adjust them for 1.0 . Every change made to them needs to be extensively tested to insure they are not too overpowered, and there just isn't enough time to do that, with everything else that needs to be done with the game to get it ready for release.
Sentries are not the same thing as Hydras and whips, because Marines can shoot those all from range, whereas most Alien classes are unable to do that.

Just making them like NS1 turrets does not work, because NS1 turrets were still spammed and caused annoying turltling and stalemates in pub games.

We locked the previous thread because we told everyone what was happening in regards to sentries and gave you a very solid reason for our decision. Whether you agree with it or not, that is the situation, and it is very disrespectful to create a new thread again just to continue an unnecessary conversation. We can experiment with other solutions for sentries after 1.0 and that will be the time for discussion, but for now there is no point starting up a whole new thread that will just get filled up with "sentries suck" posts.

--Cory

Sentries, Post 221.

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