Team resource retention
mR.Waffles
Join Date: 2009-02-03 Member: 66280Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2009-02-03 Member: 66280Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">as it applies to the balance of the game</div>A core issue of the game I'd like to see addressed is the level of "resource retention" each team benefits from and how it applies to the game's balance. "Resource retention" is how easily you can reclaim and reuse spent resources. The prime instances of these are marines who pick up the same gun they just lost, and commanders who recycle buildings.
Aliens however, have no method by which they can retain their resources. Paired with the high cost and high reliance the team has on the fade, it makes for a very volatile game. A lost fade is 50 resources the alien team desperately needs, and will not reclaim.
Why such a high reliance on the fade? It is safe to say that an upgraded skulk with its full moveset is NOT competitive with a 3/3 LMG marine. Aliens are forced into the fade role to be competitive. This role is much less forgiving than it's marine counterpart, due to resource retention. Once enough fades are lost, the alien team rarely, if ever, has the momentum to come back into the game. Aliens are forced into playing a losing battle, skulking against 3/3 marines with jetpacks and shotguns, items which are cheap and easily recycled. Leap is rarely effective enough to bring down a jetpacking marine, and that's assuming the aliens lived long enough to build two hives to retain leap.
When marines invest resources in to weapon and armor upgrades, these are retained despite losing command centers. Alien upgrades are easily popped like zits on the creep, and once destroyed must be rebuilt. Marines centralized spawning and structure armor causes alien assaults on marine upgrades to be rarely successful, where as one marine can easily snipe upgrades at an undefeated hive if aliens spawn in unfortunate positions.
The game does not feel balanced.
With 30+ minute games, I propose that the alien team should be balanced to be more forgiving, in an effort to match the resource retention offered by the marines. This would mean:
1. Skulks should be competitive with 3/3 marines. There are many avenues by which NS1 accomplished this. Leap could be faster, longer. Focus could be implemented.
2. Fades should be cheaper and less powerful and/or have a way to retain their resources.
What do you think? Do you think skulks are competitive with 3/3 marines? Do you recover from a loss of multiple fades mid game?
Aliens however, have no method by which they can retain their resources. Paired with the high cost and high reliance the team has on the fade, it makes for a very volatile game. A lost fade is 50 resources the alien team desperately needs, and will not reclaim.
Why such a high reliance on the fade? It is safe to say that an upgraded skulk with its full moveset is NOT competitive with a 3/3 LMG marine. Aliens are forced into the fade role to be competitive. This role is much less forgiving than it's marine counterpart, due to resource retention. Once enough fades are lost, the alien team rarely, if ever, has the momentum to come back into the game. Aliens are forced into playing a losing battle, skulking against 3/3 marines with jetpacks and shotguns, items which are cheap and easily recycled. Leap is rarely effective enough to bring down a jetpacking marine, and that's assuming the aliens lived long enough to build two hives to retain leap.
When marines invest resources in to weapon and armor upgrades, these are retained despite losing command centers. Alien upgrades are easily popped like zits on the creep, and once destroyed must be rebuilt. Marines centralized spawning and structure armor causes alien assaults on marine upgrades to be rarely successful, where as one marine can easily snipe upgrades at an undefeated hive if aliens spawn in unfortunate positions.
The game does not feel balanced.
With 30+ minute games, I propose that the alien team should be balanced to be more forgiving, in an effort to match the resource retention offered by the marines. This would mean:
1. Skulks should be competitive with 3/3 marines. There are many avenues by which NS1 accomplished this. Leap could be faster, longer. Focus could be implemented.
2. Fades should be cheaper and less powerful and/or have a way to retain their resources.
What do you think? Do you think skulks are competitive with 3/3 marines? Do you recover from a loss of multiple fades mid game?
Comments
2. Fades should be cheaper and less powerful and/or have a way to retain their resources.
What do you think? Do you think skulks are competitive with 3/3 marines? Do you recover from a loss of multiple fades mid game?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
1.
I don't necessarily agree with your premise that Skulks should be 1v1 competitive with 3/3 marines. The game is asymmetric by design but I think that perhaps skulks should be MORE competitive with 3/3 marines. I think the simple addition of focus, would improve the issue of skulks falling off in the late game esp against jps.
2.
You raise an interesting point about resource retention. The marines seem to have more "mid priced" tech options and these mid priced options are retainable. That said, it seems to me that the alien lifeforms are much more durable. An excellent fade player is very difficult to kill except by the best twitch shotgunners or some lucky grenades. They are so fast they can easily choose when to engage and disengage as long as they pay attention to their energy bar. Onos are now also quite fast and obviously have quite a few hp. Lerks are also very fast and have alot of juking ability. Since the ability to retain these high resource investments is so much higher then a marines ability to retain their shotgun, or I would even say much higher then a jp/shotgun, it seems fair to me that aliens face a stiffer penalty for the loss of a lifeform.
To look at it from another angle, what if marines were unable to retain their weapons. Then it would be very beneficial for all the aliens to just focus that guy with the expensive weapon and then just run away, heal and come back afterwards, this doesn't seem fair.
To make a different comparison which I feel is fair, you don't see many marine teams recovering from losing most of their exos either if they have chosen that tech path first.
If you were somehow able to recover fades,lerks etc. I feel that since these lifeforms are so durable it would be much more beneficial to the alien team then the marine team. As well, since aliens are fast, their teammates are more likely to be able to reach the point where tech was lost, as opposed to marines who once they lose their tech far from their team, there is basically no chance of recovery.
To make a different comparison which I feel is fair, you don't see many marine teams recovering from losing most of their exos either if they have chosen that tech path first.
If you were somehow able to recover fades,lerks etc. I feel that since these lifeforms are so durable it would be much more beneficial to the alien team then the marine team. As well, since aliens are fast, their teammates are more likely to be able to reach the point where tech was lost, as opposed to marines who once they lose their tech far from their team, there is basically no chance of recovery.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Anyone who goes Lerk for 30 resources is a mad man. God bless him for trying, but lerks are terrible. They die to shot guns in approximately three good volleys, and a single dead lerk is one less fade later on. I agree Fades are insanely durable, but the issue here is the binary nature of victory. If the fades get killed by the shot guns, and yes it is very easy to kill a fade with a shotgun if you're a decent player, then the game is simply over. There is little recovery.
As far as Exo suits go, if marines have them the game is probably already won. Regardless, I agree that these are balanced for cost, as they cannot be retained and 75 resources is an insane amount of cost. The middle tier options for marines are vastly superior as we both agree.
I still think that even though fades can be killed by good SGs, that it would be far too strong for the reasons I mentioned before to recover them. It is binery but that is the nature of any RTS game and I think thats OK. You gather resources, you spend them and then if you lose your strong units without dealing damage with them, you lose. By making the game too forgiving you water down the incentive to play with care and skill.
I actually really agree strongly about the lerks being one less fade aspect and I think that there may be an opportunity for the devs to implement hypermutation here as a skill seperate from the shift hive.
One really rough strategy I've encountered is a 10ish minute shotgun push, where marines cash in their 25 res for a shotgun each, and it comes when alien resources are right around the lower 40s. It is very hard to deal with as fade is just out of reach, so its up to the skulks to defeat the shotgunners. If you pay out for lerk, you are inhibiting your fade abilities that your team desperately needs in the mid-game, not to mention lerks aren't all too survivable, especially for what you paid.
In NS1, I think it is safe to say skulks were competitive with 3/3 marines. I would love to see leap enhanced, or focus added to the game. The core alien lifeforms certainly need more attention in the current state of the game.
and lerks are way too slow and way too big. ><
I don't necessarily agree with your premise that Skulks should be 1v1 competitive with 3/3 marines. The game is asymmetric by design but I think that perhaps skulks should be MORE competitive with 3/3 marines. I think the simple addition of focus, would improve the issue of skulks falling off in the late game esp against jps.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I actually hear many players mention this; that skulks should not be competitive in 1v1 with 3/3 marines. Why is this? Both teams have the same number of players, similar respawn times, and similar upgrade costs. While it is a little counter-intuitive, the marines are the MORE mobile team. Phase gates are cheap and are absolutely impeccable. Sprinting is a great boost for a marine since NS1. In actuality, a sprinting marine can drop his guns and outrun a skulk! I've seen this silly strategy used to run into hives and slice up upgrades. And lest not forget the mighty beacon. Many commanders send all players into a hive, unload every grenade in your clip, then warp back to save your base, and try the rush again. The aliens lost their phase gate analog (and a whole lot of their abilities) since NS1. At the very least, the marine and the skulk should have as competitive a balance as possible in 1v1s, not placing one over the other.
Not lying, I laughed. Quoted for emphasis.
Would be very interesting to know the stats for res gained/lost during a game and the correlation with win/loss. I suspect, like the op, that marines would have much higher win rates than aliens when both are on the lower res side of the game.
awesome res sync there
A static gorge and infestation weapon devour ability has been discussed <a href='index.php?showtopic=121222'>here</a>!
My advice? Make armories stop giving armor again. The energy cooldown on heals is not enough, comms just drop multiple armories now. Make marines buy welders again (which, by the way they can pick them up if they die anyway) and make them weld each other. Kharaa hit and run tactics DO NOT WORK WITH THE CURRENT ARMORY and still would not work even if Focus was added back into NS2.
If you disagree, instead of trolling, why don't you come and explain to us poor folks how on the RTS level this resource retention discrepancy is balanced?
Because clearly you think you know better.
Armories not giving armor and forcing welders more often would make hit and run attacks actually worthwhile.
Infestation eating guns would be an amazing change. currently the only benefit of infestation is denying the ability for marines to build
second note - when armories didn't heal armor, it was good for team communication, which is NECESSARY in natural selection, and also for building strong player communities
Infestation eating guns would be an amazing change. currently the only benefit of infestation is denying the ability for marines to build
second note - when armories didn't heal armor, it was good for team communication, which is NECESSARY in natural selection, and also for building strong player communities<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
advanced armories should heal armor like they do now, normal armories shouldnt. I think this is probably the best way to go about it :)
That's not a bad idea, but only if they up the cost of Advanced Armory research to like 30. I would still prefer that none of the armories healed armor though.
You made some interesting points about resource retention. Those are definitely worth considering.
Your comment on lerks. I kinda disagree. I have been practicing lerk a lot lately. They can be really quite usefull. I try to get 1 maybe two poisen bites in and then run away. If I get away with enough health I will come back and attempt to spike or another bite. Poisen bite, umbra, and spores are all great support role attacks. Not to mention the lerk is an incredibly obnoxious flying thing that takes marines attention away from skulks.
I do struggle against people with real aim like in gathers and so on.
+9000
ive been against sprint from the very beginning, the phase gates are fine tho. no marine team should be able to sneak into your base and get the power node up THEN drop the phase and build THEN get everyone back to base and phase in. if this happens the marines are simply better than your team.
Venem are you feeling like yourself today? You actually said something reasonable. You might want to go to a doctor.