There's a modding system, supported by UWE. Some features in NS2 are based off mods. Why can't players, who want these changes, put some effort into producing a mod with those changes? If it's great, it will be widely adopted.
Because not only is it not easy to just make your own mod, the majority of the players simply don't bother playing mods. (Of all mods the game already has, combat is the only one that regularly has 1 - 2 servers with people on it) I actually proposed a community 'balance mod' a while back and a lot of people pointed out that it would just serve to confuse players who happened to stumble upon such a server and/or divide an already small community. Supposedly we should wait for UWE to address the issue, but it hasn't exactly stepped up its efforts to address the balance issues or shared its vision on where the problem lies and how to move forward. (They have actually acknowledged there's an issue at least...)
It was done in beta and there was a reason why it was removed. It was a joke wasting 1-3 p.res on a life form that could be killed instantly by a shotgun or w3 lmg marine. So players ended up running around as zero upgrade skulks the entire match.
To be fair, onos carapace was just as expensive as skulk carapace, that was the real joke in the system. Had they actually tried to balance upgrade costs for each lifeform then it may not have been that bad. (I.e 1 p.res for skulk carapace, 3 for onos, etc) Though yes, while balancing such a system for the fragile skulk is not an easy task, I do believe it's not impossible, and the system certainly had merit in addressing tech explosions.
An onos can hide behind an exo. Will your other exos be fast enough to flank the onos? No. All they can do is shoot the back of their exo buddy.
AN Onos?
Sure, one can try, and he may do a really good job of it and only get hit by 20% of the bullets the other 7 fire. So, taking into account the damage the Exo being attacked will do, I'll give that single attacking Onos maybe 4 seconds of life if he is the best Onos who ever played.
More than one Onos unfortunately cannot hide behind a single Exo, and they will get slaughtered.
Given the narrow hallways of ns2, you will have serious problems letting more than 2 exos shoot anything in front of them. Moreover your example of 8 exo vs 8 oni is irrelevant to this discussion and to the game - this situation never occurs. Even if it would occur, the hardcounter to exos is not onos obviously, it is skulks and gorges with bilebomb.
Given the narrow hallways of ns2, you will have serious problems letting more than 2 exos shoot anything in front of them. Moreover your example of 8 exo vs 8 oni is irrelevant to this discussion and to the game - this situation never occurs. Even if it would occur, the hardcounter to exos is not onos obviously, it is skulks and gorges with bilebomb.
What do you think would win in a head to head battle? 8 Exos, or 8 Gorges and 8 Skulks? Yes, 8 vs 16, who would win?
The aliens. Each gorge has to throw one bilebomb and all the exos are blind. Then the skulks finish them. And that is if there is no cover available at all. I have stopped 3 exo pushes as a single gorge with bilebomb. All you have to do is shoot around the corner, so they dont see you but the splash hits them.
Let's get back on topic, really, there's plenty of other places where you can discuss these hypotheticals, just don't do it in my thread. They quite frankly don't contribute anything to the discussion.
From what I've read, two changes could be beneficial.
Longer build times for alien structures so Gorges would definitely be needed ( a little pres sink ). (and maybe a bit less of health points for buildings so defending the territory would be crucial.)
Or a complete overhaul of alien economic system, no more pres, only tres. It would make alien commander more important in the strategy (focus on upgrades, focus on lifeforms, focus on both but not so efficiently)... Would need a lot of work/thinking.
However, concerning the last change I fear we would see much less interesting games in competitive level and see only one strategy (whichever it is) unless it's really well thought/worked on, making the 3 base strategies viable.
And I'm no fan of 'no more tres if comm needs res then it's taken from the players'. Pub players would complain all the time, "stop taking my res, I want to fade" or whatever.
And total number of aliens would define how many res comm has available, as for the moment 1 resnode tick = 1 tick (about ~0.150res I think) for every player. Unless that system is changed too, like 1 resnode tick = 1 res divided by the number of aliens and each alien get that amount. Or, if left unchanged, the cost of each structure depends on the current number of aliens players.
In the end, whatever the changes are, aliens need more pres sink (if no complete overhaul of the current economic model.
What if individual life-form upgrades (Carapace, celerity etc) cost 1 pres to evolve into? This could be removed by upgrading the upgrade chamber (Shell, spur) for tres in an effort to trade tres for faster pres higher life-forms without sacrificing skulk efficiency.
What if individual life-form upgrades (Carapace, celerity etc) cost 1 pres to evolve into? This could be removed by upgrading the upgrade chamber (Shell, spur) for tres in an effort to trade tres for faster pres higher life-forms without sacrificing skulk efficiency.
When upgrades in NS1 costed res, no one evolved them as skulk. It was almost never worth it.
What if individual life-form upgrades (Carapace, celerity etc) cost 1 pres to evolve into? This could be removed by upgrading the upgrade chamber (Shell, spur) for tres in an effort to trade tres for faster pres higher life-forms without sacrificing skulk efficiency.
When upgrades in NS1 costed res, no one evolved them as skulk. It was almost never worth it.
lifeform maintenance costs was discussed during the beta but i dont recall what happened to it. resources slow as a higher life form - similar concept in other games. only impacting pres, it would spread out the availability of higher life forms assuming marines can kill them. khamm could use tres to egg a higher lifeform player back on the field faster - so there would be an indirect impact on tres.
Of course aliens wouldnt like this, since there would be more waiting as a lower level life form.
edit: also the rate per lifeform would be yet another 'magic number' to be tuned.
I think a big part of the balance in the game is bile bomb not having a counter. I would like to see flame throwers, or something, as a counter to bile bomb and then see how the game plays out.
I feel the marine vs alien situation similar to the US Army vs Vietcong situation in the video. The marines try to force a decisive battle with superiour weapons while the aliens are hitting their bases all around the map. I think the game was designed to run this way and I like it but this means there is an imminent disandvantage for the marines in terms of strategy.
The analogy breaks down when you account that 1) marines can force decisive battles because they know the (limited) areas in which critical alien structures are located (e.g. hives on tech nodes and harvesters on res nodes) and 2) marines aren't actually superior in combat.
I think the game would work better if it was closer to the situation you described, where aliens are inferior to marines of the same tier.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited February 2013
Ok, slight tangent time,
@SixtyWattMan : Ah.. i remember when you didnt have to ask the commander every single time what upgrades he was getting in the future, because you could choose your upgrade at any time. Of course people found a way to exploit this, but instead of coming up with an elegant solution like a much needed pres sink as discussed here, upgrades were just made to be permanent. (It irks me, if you cant tell - i even made a long internal thread about the issue) Which creates all sorts of issues.
A slice of what i wrote back in september:
"The nature of upgrades is that they trickle in. You may have celerity right now.. but you have no idea if your commander will ever get andren, let alone when.
You dont know if your team will make it to hive 2 or 3 so you can have regen and feign death. Even the most communicative commander (which you cant count on!) doesnt know where the tides of the game will influence his decisions on which upgrade.. maybe that loud player shouting for hyper mutation got his way and now we have to wait or risk never getting andren.
The point is: you are forcing a permanent static decision based on a dynamic system that literally trickles in throughout the game and changes and adapts constantly. It makes zero sense for this to be the only solution. The game is not static, and does change constantly, and with that your tactics!! Maybe celerity worked for my lerk in the early game, but now marines have W3 and i need some damn armor! hyper mutate isn't researched and wont be, more than likely.. i'm screwed and "Natural Selection" was forced upon me as a byproduct of attempting to prevent exploiters!
The main problem with only being able to change your upgrades when you change your life forms is the idea that advanced lifeforms potentially may not die the entire length of a round. I.e. a good lerk or fade in a typical game may not die... but the upgrades will still trickle in and strategies will still change drastically throughout.
From the high level design document from charlie:
"Knowing that a team is executing a strategy should give an advantage to an equally skilled team"
Part of this was your ability to adapt your equipment or upgrades. When i see fades on the field i buy a shotgun. When i hear Weapons 3 i pick carapace - well.. i used to.
Your only option currently for adapting to a situation is purchasing a lifeform - something that happens only 1-3 times an average game, compared to the dozen times a marine will purchase some equipment to better suit the situation.
Its biased and is unnecessary given the suggested solution, imo."
Not that aliens need that buff right now though.. :-P
@ironhorse I actually really, really miss being able to change upgrades. Perhaps one solution would be to make the initial upgrade cost nothing, but any changes cost pres.
It definitely would be great if players were given more flexibility in terms of upgrades, though at the same time I think they should take away the ability to go fade and onos without prior t.res research.
If we're talking just upgrades;
- Have 1 structure give all the upgrade types (I.e 1 structure for celerity AND adren, one for carapace AND regen, etc could even have all upgrades available at 1 hive but still require hives for more slot)
- Make upgrades for higher lifeforms come at p.res costs
- Allow players to reslot at any time at any place (default hypermutation as you will), though again at a p.res price if applicable (i.e if you are a higher lifeform)
Not only would that make alien gameplay A LOT more dynamic it would also address the issue of tech explosions to some extent.
Personally I've never been happy with the alien comm choosing which upgrades get picked within a hive type. All it does is incentivize him to save money by taking only the upgrade that is commonly considered the best. And what happens if a 3rd upgrade is added to each category? I'd rather we had NS1's system of all upgrades becoming available at once, at level 1-3 depending on the number of upgrade structures. I wouldn't be opposed to locking lifeforms behind tech research if we really want more tech choices for the khamm.
The analogy breaks down when you account that 1) marines can force decisive battles because they know the (limited) areas in which critical alien structures are located (e.g. hives on tech nodes and harvesters on res nodes) and 2) marines aren't actually superior in combat.
I think the game would work better if it was closer to the situation you described, where aliens are inferior to marines of the same tier.
I disagree that marines aren't superior in combat, they really are. Marines that can shoot will consistently beat skulks that are far away or mid range. Even a shotgun marine that can aim can kill a fade in 2 or 3 hits. The only alien life form that can't die in 2 hits is actually the onos, and that only takes about 4 or 5 lmg magazines but it's a huge target for a group of marines and it's fairly slow. I think it all boils down to bad aim really as far as marines having issues killing aliens.
I'd like to try the system of upgrades costing pres again, with scaling costs. Skulk upgrades, as an example, could be .67 each, so if you floor it, that's 0 res for 1 upgrade, 1 for 2, and 2 for 3 (and 2 for 4, if a 4th is ever added). Not a significant cost, and would always allow you one for free, but enough to help stagger upper lifeforms (in pubs, some players are likely going to always grab upgrades, some will always save for higher lifeforms, some will take a middle road). The cost per upgrade could be higher for higher lifeforms.
Heck, I often grab a welder as a marine, and that costs 5.
how about this? keep everything the same, but gorges must be present to build rt's upgrades, whips, hives, etc that the KHAM placed, this will require the alien commander to place down an rt, but the rt will either not build itself OR, build itself very slowly unless a gorge is present heal spraying it,
I had an idea along these lines that I hadn't really put much thought in to yet.
The basic idea was that gorges were required to drop harvester and hive ... beds? ... that the khamm could then build the harvester and hive on (as a bonus, it would stop the silly "hive from nowhere" that we have now). These would have a small pres cost, and require a gorge present, so it removes a player from battle. The harvester and hive could self grow after being dropped (they already have a nutrient rich bed or whatever dropped by the gorge to grow from), or be sped up by the gorge as normal.
Every other building would be dropped by the khamm, but require a gorge to grow (or grow very slowly without a gorge). Harvesters would still require infestation. Hives would not.
- Allow players to reslot at any time at any place (default hypermutation as you will), though again at a p.res price if applicable (i.e if you are a higher lifeform)
Unfortunately, you'd have to make it always cost res, otherwise skulks would take cara and swap it with regen when they need to heal, then go back to cara. There's a reason you can't have both at the same time, and swapping at will without cost would be nearly equivalent. (I don't think that it's a problem doing this with hypermutation, however, since you're giving up a shift upgrade to do it.)
Aliens should have to build things too... infestation should be one of them.
I can see that being an enjoyable way to spend the game.
I'm sure it would be just as enjoyable as a marine standing around pressing his use key for 15 seconds to build a structure. Spread the fun around, that's what I say...
you guys are missing the point. upgrades costing p-res is so trivial. the point is that the aliens don't play an RTS at all. 80% of the problem is the alien khamm, and 20% of the problem is performance issues.
Aliens should have to build things too... infestation should be one of them.
I can see that being an enjoyable way to spend the game.
I'm sure it would be just as enjoyable as a marine standing around pressing his use key for 15 seconds to build a structure. Spread the fun around, that's what I say...
That's what I meant by hugs and kisses, liking it to the attention that a Marine has to give with the many things he has to build.
I feel the marine vs alien situation similar to the US Army vs Vietcong situation in the video. The marines try to force a decisive battle with superiour weapons while the aliens are hitting their bases all around the map. I think the game was designed to run this way and I like it but this means there is an imminent disandvantage for the marines in terms of strategy.
The analogy breaks down when you account that 1) marines can force decisive battles because they know the (limited) areas in which critical alien structures are located (e.g. hives on tech nodes and harvesters on res nodes) and 2) marines aren't actually superior in combat.
I think the game would work better if it was closer to the situation you described, where aliens are inferior to marines of the same tier.
You did not understand what I said. By all means, the marines can try to attack a hive to force a decisive battle and they will even have a chance to egglock the aliens, as I wrote in my post. But this is a bad strategy and they get easily outmanouvered by aliens doing hit and run attacks on their base(s). I had a game last night where I was beaconed from the hive we were attacking, to our mainbase, only to be beaconed seconds later into our second techpoint. We did not find a single alien when we arrived in either base but thanks to all the beaconing around, the aliens saved their hive and won the game minutes later.
If you are interested in strategy, you should watch the video (or read sun tsu's book). It was very interesting and entertaining, at least for me.
Comments
To be fair, onos carapace was just as expensive as skulk carapace, that was the real joke in the system. Had they actually tried to balance upgrade costs for each lifeform then it may not have been that bad. (I.e 1 p.res for skulk carapace, 3 for onos, etc) Though yes, while balancing such a system for the fragile skulk is not an easy task, I do believe it's not impossible, and the system certainly had merit in addressing tech explosions.
AN Onos?
Sure, one can try, and he may do a really good job of it and only get hit by 20% of the bullets the other 7 fire. So, taking into account the damage the Exo being attacked will do, I'll give that single attacking Onos maybe 4 seconds of life if he is the best Onos who ever played.
More than one Onos unfortunately cannot hide behind a single Exo, and they will get slaughtered.
What do you think would win in a head to head battle? 8 Exos, or 8 Gorges and 8 Skulks? Yes, 8 vs 16, who would win?
Longer build times for alien structures so Gorges would definitely be needed ( a little pres sink ). (and maybe a bit less of health points for buildings so defending the territory would be crucial.)
Or a complete overhaul of alien economic system, no more pres, only tres. It would make alien commander more important in the strategy (focus on upgrades, focus on lifeforms, focus on both but not so efficiently)... Would need a lot of work/thinking.
However, concerning the last change I fear we would see much less interesting games in competitive level and see only one strategy (whichever it is) unless it's really well thought/worked on, making the 3 base strategies viable.
And I'm no fan of 'no more tres if comm needs res then it's taken from the players'. Pub players would complain all the time, "stop taking my res, I want to fade" or whatever.
And total number of aliens would define how many res comm has available, as for the moment 1 resnode tick = 1 tick (about ~0.150res I think) for every player. Unless that system is changed too, like 1 resnode tick = 1 res divided by the number of aliens and each alien get that amount. Or, if left unchanged, the cost of each structure depends on the current number of aliens players.
In the end, whatever the changes are, aliens need more pres sink (if no complete overhaul of the current economic model.
When upgrades in NS1 costed res, no one evolved them as skulk. It was almost never worth it.
Upgrades are free for skulks to assist late game scaling, but an upgrade for an onos costs 3 pres. etc.
That would only make sense if you could change upgrades. Might as well make the Onos cost 84 res.
lifeform maintenance costs was discussed during the beta but i dont recall what happened to it. resources slow as a higher life form - similar concept in other games. only impacting pres, it would spread out the availability of higher life forms assuming marines can kill them. khamm could use tres to egg a higher lifeform player back on the field faster - so there would be an indirect impact on tres.
Of course aliens wouldnt like this, since there would be more waiting as a lower level life form.
edit: also the rate per lifeform would be yet another 'magic number' to be tuned.
I think the game would work better if it was closer to the situation you described, where aliens are inferior to marines of the same tier.
@SixtyWattMan : Ah.. i remember when you didnt have to ask the commander every single time what upgrades he was getting in the future, because you could choose your upgrade at any time. Of course people found a way to exploit this, but instead of coming up with an elegant solution like a much needed pres sink as discussed here, upgrades were just made to be permanent. (It irks me, if you cant tell - i even made a long internal thread about the issue) Which creates all sorts of issues.
A slice of what i wrote back in september:
"The nature of upgrades is that they trickle in. You may have celerity right now.. but you have no idea if your commander will ever get andren, let alone when.
You dont know if your team will make it to hive 2 or 3 so you can have regen and feign death. Even the most communicative commander (which you cant count on!) doesnt know where the tides of the game will influence his decisions on which upgrade.. maybe that loud player shouting for hyper mutation got his way and now we have to wait or risk never getting andren.
The point is: you are forcing a permanent static decision based on a dynamic system that literally trickles in throughout the game and changes and adapts constantly. It makes zero sense for this to be the only solution. The game is not static, and does change constantly, and with that your tactics!! Maybe celerity worked for my lerk in the early game, but now marines have W3 and i need some damn armor! hyper mutate isn't researched and wont be, more than likely.. i'm screwed and "Natural Selection" was forced upon me as a byproduct of attempting to prevent exploiters!
The main problem with only being able to change your upgrades when you change your life forms is the idea that advanced lifeforms potentially may not die the entire length of a round. I.e. a good lerk or fade in a typical game may not die... but the upgrades will still trickle in and strategies will still change drastically throughout.
From the high level design document from charlie:
"Knowing that a team is executing a strategy should give an advantage to an equally skilled team"
Part of this was your ability to adapt your equipment or upgrades. When i see fades on the field i buy a shotgun. When i hear Weapons 3 i pick carapace - well.. i used to.
Your only option currently for adapting to a situation is purchasing a lifeform - something that happens only 1-3 times an average game, compared to the dozen times a marine will purchase some equipment to better suit the situation.
Its biased and is unnecessary given the suggested solution, imo."
Not that aliens need that buff right now though.. :-P
If we're talking just upgrades;
- Have 1 structure give all the upgrade types (I.e 1 structure for celerity AND adren, one for carapace AND regen, etc could even have all upgrades available at 1 hive but still require hives for more slot)
- Make upgrades for higher lifeforms come at p.res costs
- Allow players to reslot at any time at any place (default hypermutation as you will), though again at a p.res price if applicable (i.e if you are a higher lifeform)
Not only would that make alien gameplay A LOT more dynamic it would also address the issue of tech explosions to some extent.
Shooting Gorges is its own reward.
I disagree that marines aren't superior in combat, they really are. Marines that can shoot will consistently beat skulks that are far away or mid range. Even a shotgun marine that can aim can kill a fade in 2 or 3 hits. The only alien life form that can't die in 2 hits is actually the onos, and that only takes about 4 or 5 lmg magazines but it's a huge target for a group of marines and it's fairly slow. I think it all boils down to bad aim really as far as marines having issues killing aliens.
Heck, I often grab a welder as a marine, and that costs 5.
I had an idea along these lines that I hadn't really put much thought in to yet.
The basic idea was that gorges were required to drop harvester and hive ... beds? ... that the khamm could then build the harvester and hive on (as a bonus, it would stop the silly "hive from nowhere" that we have now). These would have a small pres cost, and require a gorge present, so it removes a player from battle. The harvester and hive could self grow after being dropped (they already have a nutrient rich bed or whatever dropped by the gorge to grow from), or be sped up by the gorge as normal.
Every other building would be dropped by the khamm, but require a gorge to grow (or grow very slowly without a gorge). Harvesters would still require infestation. Hives would not.
Unfortunately, you'd have to make it always cost res, otherwise skulks would take cara and swap it with regen when they need to heal, then go back to cara. There's a reason you can't have both at the same time, and swapping at will without cost would be nearly equivalent. (I don't think that it's a problem doing this with hypermutation, however, since you're giving up a shift upgrade to do it.)
I can see that being an enjoyable way to spend the game.
That's what I meant by hugs and kisses, liking it to the attention that a Marine has to give with the many things he has to build.
If you are interested in strategy, you should watch the video (or read sun tsu's book). It was very interesting and entertaining, at least for me.