Reduce income by team size to improve small marine teams
nawoa
Join Date: 2012-12-11 Member: 174777Members, Reinforced - Gold
Join Date: 2012-12-11 Member: 174777Members, Reinforced - Gold
Currently, the great movement and expansion bonus kharaa have naturally allows them to expand with impunity in small-team games, since they can build freely without relying on players to do the constructing. As a remedy for this, I suggest accelerating the resource tick rate for small-player teams, which should help to balance the odds a little for the marine team when a server has fewer players. Marines benefit from extra res in the early game much more than kharaa.
I've attached a spreadsheet screenshot showing how this might work. I don't know what the current tick rate is so I just made a guess.
[attachment=36179:examples.png]
Other notes:
- It would also help to even the odds a little bit when one team has more players than the other but not enough to reduce spawn time; if one team is getting X percent more resources per extractor, this has an effect in the long term.
- By the time the population gets up to around 8 per team the tick speed increase is much smaller, so it won't upset balance in normal-sized games where the marines and kharaa are more evenly matched.
- If a bunch of people ragequit off one team, combined with the increased spawn time, this would help the remaining players still have a chance of winning.
- It should help to make smaller games a bit more interesting since it won't be forever and a day before you can get any upgrades with your limited expansion capabilities.
- It sort of makes sense from a realism <i>(terrible word for gameplay discussion, I know)</i> standpoint, since theoretically the resources are being distributed not just to the team resource pool but also divided among the players.
I've attached a spreadsheet screenshot showing how this might work. I don't know what the current tick rate is so I just made a guess.
[attachment=36179:examples.png]
Other notes:
- It would also help to even the odds a little bit when one team has more players than the other but not enough to reduce spawn time; if one team is getting X percent more resources per extractor, this has an effect in the long term.
- By the time the population gets up to around 8 per team the tick speed increase is much smaller, so it won't upset balance in normal-sized games where the marines and kharaa are more evenly matched.
- If a bunch of people ragequit off one team, combined with the increased spawn time, this would help the remaining players still have a chance of winning.
- It should help to make smaller games a bit more interesting since it won't be forever and a day before you can get any upgrades with your limited expansion capabilities.
- It sort of makes sense from a realism <i>(terrible word for gameplay discussion, I know)</i> standpoint, since theoretically the resources are being distributed not just to the team resource pool but also divided among the players.
Comments
So the smaller the game, the slower Cysts can spread because the cooldown is longer.
Build times of Kharaa structures being increased based on current player counts might also work.
Axehilt, I like your idea. Another idea might be to make mac build and repair rates closer to an actual marine's, because in small games macs and turrets are fairly essential to make up for the troops you would otherwise have.
Axehilt, I like your idea. Another idea might be to make mac build and repair rates closer to an actual marine's, because in small games macs and turrets are fairly essential to make up for the troops you would otherwise have.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah I agree think the egg thing absolutely needs to happen.
I tried to think of a way where low pop games could start marines with a free MAC to assist with early constructing, but it seems like that would go down a perilous path which introduces a lot of problems which would have to be solved. Increasing MAC build rate might help if it didn't feel like such a painful/disadvantageous choice to go early Robo Factory.
I think a mod wouldn't be too hard to make that tests these out, just find the variables that define these rates, and set them equal to a function of the team size, which has to be defined somewhere.
At the same time we don't want it to be irritating, you don't want to have to constantly be waiting for the infestation to expand, going back to it, building another cyst, doing something else, forgetting about the infestation, remembering 10 minutes later you still need to work on it, etc, etc, but I feel right now it's too fast.
current res income:
1 tres per RT per 6 seconds.
0.125 pres per RT per 6 seconds.
I don't know why you'd want to increase res gained from smaller games for marines. It's already, effectively, increased because you have to drop less stuff for your team. In a 12 player game, you need to drop more medpacks/ammo than you do in a 6p game.
The only problem Marines have in small games is that they have to build structures in order to expand. The Kham can drop everything, hop out and be a contributing player to the Alien team. However, the Com has to stay in chair in order for Marines to have any chance of being effective, which (unfortunately) is working as intended.
On the opposite side of the coin, when we enter large games, Marines have a distinct advantage due to weapon recycle and the insane DPS achieved with the Rifle in large numbers (another critique, another thread, another time).
The only problem Marines have in small games is that they have to build structures in order to expand. The Kham can drop everything, hop out and be a contributing player to the Alien team. However, the Com has to stay in chair in order for Marines to have any chance of being effective, which (unfortunately) is working as intended.
On the opposite side of the coin, when we enter large games, Marines have a distinct advantage due to weapon recycle and the insane DPS achieved with the Rifle in large numbers (another critique, another thread, another time).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I doubt anyone thought the res model would solve team sizes entirely -- it clearly only solves the specific subset of problems related to how the old res model worked. (In addition to just flat-out flowing better than NS1, "Comm drop me a shotgun. COMM DROP ME A SHOTGUN!")
The rest of the problems associated with differing team sizes remain, and should be solved separately -- and honestly isn't really related to resources but the massive disparity in construction capabilities between the two teams at different team sizes.