Why does NS2 encourage players to avoid combat?
Kaneh
Join Date: 2012-12-11 Member: 174783Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-12-11 Member: 174783Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
There are tons of "housekeeping" things (building/killing power, cysts, clogs) and artificial blocks (having to individually tech everything). There is punishment for finding action and pushing objectives (no res while dead).
there are tons of things that discourage actively fighting with other players and lots of things that encourage people to camp on their res until they get i-win tech (jp/exo or onos)
i cannot see why something like a sentryturret limit was added because they don't want us to fight buildings, yet things like powernodes and cysts need to be build/killed and are even more of a boring time sink.
a straight-onos skulk's optimal playstyle is to do nothing but chomp on RTs and avoid fighting at all. How NS2 came to encourage such a ridiculous way to "play" the game needs to be seriously looked at.
there are tons of things that discourage actively fighting with other players and lots of things that encourage people to camp on their res until they get i-win tech (jp/exo or onos)
i cannot see why something like a sentryturret limit was added because they don't want us to fight buildings, yet things like powernodes and cysts need to be build/killed and are even more of a boring time sink.
a straight-onos skulk's optimal playstyle is to do nothing but chomp on RTs and avoid fighting at all. How NS2 came to encourage such a ridiculous way to "play" the game needs to be seriously looked at.
Comments
There's also a big reward, map control, denial of resources, stress on the enemy, expansion.
I think the OP means:
1) you could do that (attacking) and win (doing damage, retreating alive)
2) you could do that and fail (dying too often --> losing precious pres)
3) you could idle near hive/ip, drink a tea/read a book and begin to play when you have enough pres to go onos/exo/stuff like that.
1 and 2 are rewarding for tres and maybe your own K/D scores, but 3 is the safest way to max out pres.
1 and 2 is needed to win games, and 3 needs 1s and 2s to be able to invest his pres, but playing 1/2 is risky for most players when it comes to pres.
Enemy standing next to an RT? Better avoid them!
Oh no, there's a marine building a phase gate. Better avoid him and attack an unguarded RT instead!
etc.
Perhaps it is more accurate to say that NS2 discourages unnecessary combat.
There are ways to attack with a low risk to your life (as aliens anyway, and marines don't need much pres regardless so meh), and 3 is "safer" to gather pres, too bad the game is over.
Why do new players think extreme passivity is the best course of action, and how can we encourage them otherwise?
Housekeeping tasks are boring however and can become really tedious when too frequent. They should have been kept to a minimum, that is, just enough to provide the positive aspects above but keep the tediousness as low as possible.
On the marine side there was already enough housekeeping tasks in NS1, there was no need to add more really. The alien side is a bit different, the connection with the commander and the RTS aspect is mainly absent, some tasks have been made less interesting (gorge building) but overall I don't think there is more housekeeping tasks than in NS1.
Exactly, sneak behind enemy lines, let the marines build 3-4 pgs all over the map and hit them all over the place. As soon as the marines get all the aliens to fight over one position, they have what they want. Worst thing for marines is to play whack a skulk for 20 minutes and then get crushed by oni.
you're repeating exactly what I wrote (or what I wanted to say at least). only that marines don't need much pres is new to me (who believes exos to be usefull in some ways).
@|strofix| you wrote once, that playing "passively" is the key for aliens by what you meant attacking marine buildings early and mid game but retreating when marines are coming (afaik). I think that's a good point to deepen this conversation: is it better for aliens to avoid pvp combat? if yes, why is that? and should it be better to avoid pvp combat in a game which is - as I see it - more a FPS than a RTS game?
You'll never need exos if you engaged in the right combat early on. A shotty/mines or two, maybe a jetpack, that's it, compared to aliens who NEED a few people to get a 50 res life form, and if necessary, a 75 res one. Marines rely on their tech, which comes from tres, where as aliens rely on their life forms, which are pres.
Well I think the worrying part about the passivity of new players is that it extends to their marine game. Marines need to be anything but passive. They should never run away, and they should always attack. Aliens should always try and play "passively" (my definition of passive, which is essentially hit and run), and avoid marines as best they can. Obviously when marines are knocking at your door, there is only so much avoidance you can do.
However, I think the OP is talking about true passivity, as many others define it. As in, doing absolutely nothing out of fear of dying and losing pRes gain. That is never the right option for either team in my opinion.
Stop thinking in this black and white patterns. Sure, there are situations where you don't want to attack, but that doesn't mean that you should do it generally. Start to think situational.
It's the same with the player-vs-building argument regarding sentries: The devs stated, that they don't want to go overboard with player-vs-buildings gameplay. And what made some of the black and white thinkers of it? "Devs want no player vs building gameplay." Srsly? In an RTS - FPS Hybrid? Is this some kind of bipolar disorder, where a person can't see, that there is a middle-ground between such extremes?
Did it never came to mind that maybe, just maybe, they only want to discourage you from useless deaths, that gain your team no advantage?
I'm not sure what you mean, but I was being sarcastic in my original post. Of course you want to enter combat to deny expansion and protect your bases. It is necessary combat in order for your team to succeed.
Sitting around and waiting for your PRES to go up ends up being detrimental to your team in the long run.
I think most of the new players don't fully realise this is an RTS game in it's core, and that speed of execution is crucial.
Kaneh is mostly correct... at least for Alien it's much safer to avoid enemies altogether and force beacons / backstab RTs as opposed to directly engaging which risks eggs / res / map control. of course you can make obnoxious examples like "WELL WHAT IF YOU DON'T DEFEND YOUR RTS !!!" but obviously that is not the meaning he was trying to get across ^^
lack of Alien scaling with tech only seems to contribute to this as well
Depends on the situation. In my sarcastic scenario, obviously you want to engage the marines attacking your buildings (upgrades or your hive), one guy building a phase gate in a crucial location, or even one guy standing next to their RT, as usually 1v1 will give the upper hand to the skulk (especially with silence or camo).
And yes, sometimes players need to realize when to avoid combat and go after undefended points instead. It's all a matter of priority and efficiency. I am arguing against being TOO passive and scared of combat. Choosing your battles wisely helps the team and contributes to a win.
I don't want pres for kills back but then again, not getting any ressources while dead is not very intuitive either.
The strategic element of the game is all tied up in the buildings, the buildings function completely without player input, beyond perhaps some minimal setup time for marines, but your players can practice synchronised dance for all the difference it makes to your research, resource income, observatory tracking, and general function of all the important bits.
The only thing players have to do is stop other players from killing buildings. So obviously fighting occurs, but it is only useful fighting if it happens to occur in defence of, or in destruction of resources and other structures.
You win by having more structures than the enemy, structures mostly take care of themselves as long as enemy players don't kill them, so your primary objectives are to defend and destroy structures, not players. Killing players is simply a means to get at structures, but as is the case in every problem, the brute force approach is the least efficient.
Fighting a pitched battle through hallway and room to force the enemy back to their hive room/base, slowly picking off their lifeforms/weapons upgrades and eventually destroying their spawn is cool, and fun, but it's also expensive and kinda dumb. Just throw skulks/rifle marines at the enemy extractors all day and save your money for exos/onoses. You'll stop them getting upgrades in the first place and it costs you nothing. This is also probably a major contributing factor to aliens being better than marines, because skulks are way better at this than basic rifle marines are.
You don't win by fighting, basically, you win by getting more money, and getting more money has... only a tangential relationship to fighting things.
Correction, TDM for 85% of the team, RTS for the remaining 15%.
It is?
Because biting down a stupid RT will cost the marines 10 TRes flat, plus 1 TRes per resource tick the RT stays down, plus 1 PRes per marine, per tick the RT stays down.
Say you have a team of eight, the RT stays down for 3 res ticks, that costs 13 TRes and 24 PRes. Assuming you used a skulk to bite the RT or you used something else and survived (and there is little reason why you wouldn't), it cost your team nothing, save a minute or two of one skulk's time.
Conversely, say you win a large fight at a tech node. That probably means you took some material losses in that fight so let's say it costs you oh, 25 PRes in gear, one shotgun and one welder, or just under one lerk, or a gorge or two and some spare hydras.
That gains you... well nothing really, you got a room, the room presumably didn't have much in it, and it cost you a full commitment of your team for the duration of the fight (during which time, skulks are probably eating your res nodes) and you have to expend more money to develop the tech point. Certainly you won the tech point but, there are lots of tech points. Wouldn't it be easier to find a less contested one? Or more profitable to wait for aliens/marines to drop some structures there and then destroy them, wasting their res?
Chomping/axing down an RT is one of the most efficient single uses of player time and resources that you are capable of making in a game of NS. It costs the enemy time and money, quite a lot of time and money in fact, as marines especially need to divert players to rebuilding their RTs, and aliens need to divert players to clearing out marines from destroyed RTs.
Unless the tech point has a lot of enemy materiel in it, fighting for it is kind of a waste of your time and money.