It'd be a shame if UWE listened to a small group of mostly blind naysayers instead of improving the game for the majority.
I have to respond to this, although I can't find the quote I will if you haven't seen it.
When build 240 dropped "a small group of mostly blind naysayers" screamed to the high heavens and were posting their good byes. Lo and behold UWE listened, and they publicly admitted they were caving to a small but vocal minority of players.
The armor change just won't wash. I know people disagree with me, that's totally fine, but the reality is if you think the average Joe pubber will embrace this change then you're in for a surprize.
I haven't posted in this thread lately as I have been trying to get into a game with this modded balance build, since I really want to silence those who use the fact that I haven't played it to somehow justify why I am not allowed to object to it. I'm still going to try to get a game in, then I will post my honest opinion about it.
My suggestion? Leave the armor change as a mod and let server admins decide. Then players will vote with their feet. Game design 101 states that you NEVER force changes on an unwilling player base. If you do then you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.
a) ignoring the "mostly blind" part, which hinted at the fact that only about 2 people in this thread who are against it have actually tried it,
b) equating the "small group of naysayers" in this thread to pretty much everyone who takes this game seriously, i.e. the core playerbase, complaining about the 240 skulk change (which, I would say, is quite a lot of the same people who are actually for the armoury change) and
c) ignoring the fact that the part people were by far most upset about in 240 was a bug that was never intended to be in the game.
Also, like I have said several times throughout this thread, if a majority of "Joe pubbers" doesn't like the change and it fucks up the game with no one ever being welded, I'm sure everyone will be happy to revert. Not gonna happen though, as we have established about 5 pages ago that absolutely nothing backs your disastrous predictions and random people as well as established players alike mostly like the change.
When build 240 dropped "a small group of mostly blind naysayers" screamed to the high heavens and were posting their good byes. Lo and behold UWE listened, and they publicly admitted they were caving to a small but vocal minority of players.
You mean they "caved" by fixing a bug that affected the movement in a way they did not intended? Or are you talking about something else? Or are you hinting that the "bug" was just excuse so that they could save face as they caved to the pressure? :-/
The armor change just won't wash. I know people disagree with me, that's totally fine, but the reality is if you think the average Joe pubber will embrace this change then you're in for a surprize.
I am kinda confused. Why exactly do you think, that, among all the complexities and teamwork that they need to learn and perform so that the marines are able to even function is this the one they wont be able to stomach for some reason? They wont care unless it negatively affect balance in significant way. Which it wont if it is accompanied with sufficient alien changes.
My suggestion? Leave the armor change as a mod and let server admins decide. Then players will vote with their feet. Game design 101 states that you NEVER force changes on an unwilling player base. If you do then you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.
There will be ALWAYS a subset of players that dislike upcoming change and will bitch and moan until they get used to it. EVERY balance change is forced onto at least part of the player base. Thats not "cutting off your nose to spite your face" thats basic process of balancing the game.
a) ignoring the "mostly blind" part, which hinted at the fact that only about 2 people in this thread who are against it have actually tried it
And you're ignoring the fact that they didn't even have an open test of 240, they just dumped it on people. NO ONE knew about the changes, NO ONE tried the changes, just like NO ONE knows about this possible change either. (Note by "no one" I am referring to the global player base that never visits the UWE forums)
I expect that the devs will be very reticent to implement any changes to fundamental game elements like this, especially after what happened with build 240.
You mean they "caved" by fixing a bug that affected the movement in a way they did not intended? Or are you talking about something else?
I'm talking about the changes to movement that had NOTHING to do with that bug. Shall I get you a quote from one of the devs on that?
I am kinda confused. Why exactly do you think, that, among all the complexities and teamwork that they need to learn and perform so that the marines are able to even function is this the one they wont be able to stomach for some reason?
I've said it up-thread, but the concept is really simple.
You don't make people pay - directly or indirectly - to heal up to full health.
It's like suggesting people pay personal resources to spawn after dying. You just don't do it.
I'm talking about the changes to movement that had NOTHING to do with that bug. Shall I get you a quote from one of the devs on that?
By all means do. And I mean that genuinely. I might have missed that particular part of the whole back-and-forth discussion about 240 movement changes.
And you're ignoring the fact that they didn't even have an open test of 240, they just dumped it on people. NO ONE knew about the changes, NO ONE tried the changes, just like NO ONE knows about this possible change either. (Note by "no one" I am referring to the global player base that never visits the UWE forums)
See my previous post. If it turns out a huge amount of people won't like it, it's easy enough to revert. There's no reason to think this will happen though, and again everything boils down to you basically saying "I don't like it, so it won't work". By your logic, no significant changes could ever be made. This logic might be based on the good old "if it ain't broke...", but this is changing and trying to improve, not fixing.
You don't make people pay - directly or indirectly - to heal up to full health.
It's like suggesting people pay personal resources to spawn after dying. You just don't do it.
One requires a marginal personal sacrifice to encourage teamwork, the other would just be downright insane. Also, again, you aren't in a position to decide for everyone what can and can't be done. The overall feedback on this is like >90% positive and the only way to find out if the average pubber will like it is to actually test it on the average pubber.
Marines get absolutely fucking crushed in the Balance Mod, I have no idea why anyone would wade through 14 pages of the same stupid argument about MUH TEAM WORK when it becomes obvious to anyone with a brain lerks are borderline OP and old fades would be disgustingly OP, new fade in balance mod is just straight up hilarious.
Granted I've only played on merican BT servers on early hours and most the games aliens already had 2 hives but mid game I don't see what marines have up their sleeves to compete with alien tech now.
c) ignoring the fact that the part people were by far most upset about in 240 was a bug that was never intended to be in the game.
Also, like I have said several times throughout this thread, if a majority of "Joe pubbers" doesn't like the change and it fucks up the game with no one ever being welded, I'm sure everyone will be happy to revert. Not gonna happen though, as we have established about 5 pages ago that absolutely nothing backs your disastrous predictions and random people as well as established players alike mostly like the change.
Accel was halved and 'that bug' allowed people to gain speed on same surfaces again which was taken out again in 241, something most comp players absolutely fucking hate as walljumping is reduced back to floor wall floor wall floor object floor wall, instead of floor wall wall wall object wall wall floor wall wall.
You didn't establish shit 5 pages ago except you managed to play 2k hours on some random server that had no self weld mod, no F4 and you were an admin on, sometime in 04/05 onwards when NS 1 was already dead in most countries outside of Europe. Everyone else with NS 1 time has already posted the blindingly obvious fact it was a horrible aspect of NS 1 and nearly every AMX server (all of NS1 servers) were using multiple 'self weld' or 'weld your own armour welding others' kind of plug in, I already pointed out nearly every server in ausns used the mod which you chose to ignore as it shattered your stupid argument of forced team work = good game play, or passive game play = good game play.
No one is doubting that in this small as fuck, comp player/wanna be comp player biased sample set playing bt servers that this isn't a problem, most of these people are well versed in buying welders once shotguns are out and relying on welding and welder swapping to sustain themselves in pushes backed up by comms who med. The people this will most effect is average joe random who gets bit twice defending the natural expansion, comes back to base, stands around 30 more seconds trying to figure out why his armour won't come back and how he can get other people to weld him before he ventures back out into the real world to be of use to the marine team.
People suiciding/binding kill in console/F4 was done in NS 1, it's a shame you never left the cocoon of 1 server to see it a lot in 1.04/2.0/3.0. In current builds now almost no comp player will stop to weld an RT, it's simply easier to let it die and re build it later much faster, mechanics/game culture are already in place that don't support this "everyone will enjoy this new level of team work by having to stop and weld each other in base 24/7", pubs struggle enough to weld obs/power/pg, why would introducing a more punishing approach to armour make everyone 180 and become completely competent in welding.
Seriously defies common fucking sense, it's like hearing about nano shield being OP, if it was so fucking OP then why doesn't even comp game rush a 2nd CC and drop nano and win every early engagement/game? Oh it's not OP at all, it's OP when a 3/3 SG JP marine goes through a phase with 10 med packs around it on. Same deal with armouries and armour, marines lose plenty enough pushes and bases with armouries in current patch in comp and pub games, how in the fuck is this supposed to add to a game by taking away and who the fuck seriously wants to spend more time building/repairing in a FPS, you know who builds/repairs shit in RTS, the peons, minions,no bodies, people don't want to accurately replicate the feeling of being a peon in a FPS. The one sole example about an armoury helping a comp player win an engagement vs multiple aliens was debunked by the player himself in the forums, no one else with video evidence of how hard done by an alien team was by an evil armour giving armoury have been presented since.
Skulk movement got dropped on its arse and it has been nothing but tears on the forums, now you want to make the marine basic game play equally as harsh to the average player after seeing how well it went down for aliens?
edit: for some extra mad, you know why counter strike beat quake as the #1 comp FPS? Sure as shit wasn't because CS had a higher skill ceiling was it, it was more accessible and less punishing on new/inexperienced players, know why CoD/BF enjoy hundreds of thousands of more players than NS or any source mod game ever has? Sure as shit isn't the incredible game play depth offered by CoD, I'm not saying casualing everything is great but adding in unintuitive, boring, passive game play elements is doing 0 favours to a game struggling to attract or keep the player base it has.
What makes you think I'll read a post that probably insults me about twelve times and has no actual content beyond that? Try posting something without the tone of an angry teenager and people might bother to read and respond.
Well I just finished a game on descent and getting welds was difficult especially early game. Later on with jetpacks no one bothered to weld mid air and everyone went down fast. Extremely frustrating when I was at base and no one had welders or even if they did they just walked past me. Right now I am early game tram and still no one gets welder except me so I am left unwelded and annoyed that I was willing to drop 5 pres that early and no one else wishes to do the same. You can enter the game right now it is pretty full and see for yourself. A team mate died in front of me dropped a welder and sg and this guy just goes and picks them both up and runs away without welding the rest of us who survived the battle. This is exactly what I meant by how it will not work in pubs most of the time. You have to hope that you get good team mates or else gameplay suffers. It was manageable before because you could just use the armory to heal up if people refused to weld. Also the longer marine spawns are insufferable and should not be changed from what we have now. Increasing JP cost to 15 when we have a pres sink of 5 on welders while aliens get buffed and res when dead as well as having no personal res sink is also a strange move.
EDIT: If you want to test this mod now is your chance. Please do so.
I don't personally mind people not trying it as long as they either make it clear it's their opinion and they just won't enjoy it, or they come up with valid reasons why this change is bad for the game. The latter has simply not happened yet, because I and others have dismantled every single point against the change while having named several reasons why it's actually beneficial for the game and makes logical sense, and none of these points have been or can be invalidated by theory.
Also, like I have said several times throughout this thread, if a majority of "Joe pubbers" doesn't like the change and it fucks up the game with no one ever being welded, I'm sure everyone will be happy to revert. Not gonna happen though, as we have established about 5 pages ago that absolutely nothing backs your disastrous predictions and random people as well as established players alike mostly like the change.
What a load of complete unsubstantiated pap.
Let me see if I understand you. Everyone who disagrees with you has clueless "opinions" while your opinions are actually logical, infutable reason that invalidates the disagreement. And since they're clearly wrong, you won't even read them because they are probably insulting you for some strange reason.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Your opinions are opinions. Everyone else's opinions are no less valid than yours. So maybe you should climb down off the high gorge.
Here's a fact for you though: Armories not healing armor was already tried in build 215 and was REVERTED ( http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/1960449#Comment_1960449 , hat tip Tinker). It was tried. It didn't work. It was removed. Maybe there is some merit to those saying not to remove armor healing again.
Thus the burden is now on those supporting the armor healing removal to make the case that it should be put in yet again. I remain unconvinced.
So, after getting tired of hearing the moaning about "don't criticize unless you try it" - despite it being this way all though NS1, I went ahead and finally got into a couple games. I must admit, Selwek has put a lot of work into it. I tip my hat to ANYONE who tries out new things for the sake of experimentation. There's nothing wrong with trying stuff.
As for the mod itself, I found the movement kinda like skating. I also found that hit registration seemed a bit off compared to the current build, so I'm wondering if he is using a pre-240 build as his template, and as such the old hit registration issues haven't been fixed. However, that's not what this thread is about.
That said, about the armory change? Would anyone be surprised if I said I still hate it? Since I do.
I get what people are looking at here. We have some people saying this is needed to discourage forward armories (which I never found to be a problem, but whatever) and we have others saying that no armor healing promotes teamwork.
On the first point, there are LOADS of ways to address a 'forward armory' issue, not the least of which is to only make an armory repair armor when it is being powered by a tech point power node. Or when there is a command chair nearby, or anything else along those lines. The bottom line is that you don't have to yank armor repair entirely to accomplish the same thing.
What's worse, I found the entire mechanic to be awkward. People dropping welders for someone else to weld them, and while they're screwing around doing that they get attacked and owned by aliens. This is an improvement? Again, if everyone was issued a free welder that wouldn't happen. In game one I was on mineshaft, which because of it's size meant more time between attacks. There was a bit more welding on that. In the second game I played on Tram we got rolled specifically because there was no armor healing at armory. Hardly anyone had enough time to try and weld one another, they died like flies with 100 health and no armor.
This was the FIRST AND ONLY NS2 game I have *ever* played where the marine team lost because they all died - despite having TWO command chairs, THREE IPs, and all the assorted fixins. (like obs in both bases, phase gates between the two etc) It was a joke, plain and simple. (longer marine respawns didn't help either)
On the 'teamwork' aspect, the whole thing felt completely contrived. One of the best things about teamwork is when people come together because they WANT to, not because they HAVE to.
People shouldn't feel forced, and that is exactly what this does.
Teamwork should be natural. Teamwork should be spontaneous. Teamwork should be something that rewards itself. When you artificially try and create teamwork you don't get teamwork at all. You get a bunch of people who are together because they have been forced to, not because they have to. You lose the psychological aspect of it.
Think of it like distress beacon. Does distress beacon create teamwork? No, it doesn't. Despite bringing the entire team together in one spot, people are forced to do so. As such, when the team arrives it's usually chaos. There is no semblance of teamwork at all since the circumstance is totally contrived. It's artificial.
Lastly, I just cannot stomach the fact that a person still cannot get armor repaired for free anywhere on the map. If welders were free and provided as stock equipment, I could swallow this change since everyone would be able to weld everyone else for no cost. Instead you have one team that gets free heals and the other has to pay for welders to get the same. Sorry, I just don't like it, and in its current state my opinion won't be changing.
So please no more "you haven't tried it" complaints. I've seen all I need to see.
Here's a fact for you though: Armories not healing armor was already tried in build 215 and was REVERTED ( http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/1960449#Comment_1960449 , hat tip Tinker). It was tried. It didn't work. It was removed. Maybe there is some merit to those saying not to remove armor healing again.
Psst: it was removed because at the time marines had an already abysmal win rate. There were massive performance issues and really poor hit reg which affected marines more than aliens. I was there, I played that build and all the ones before it. Just because it "didn't work" then does not instantly make it not work now. Marine playability has massively improved since the beta. Referencing build 215 is essentially a red herring. If we are going to make arguments lets make them using the CURRENT state of the game or in this case the BALANCE MOD. The balance mod should be more what peoples arguments are about since this change comes paired with a host of other balance tweaks and overhauls.
I happen to like the change, others won't because they are concerned about pub balance at the lowest common denominator. Honestly, there have been a lot of fallacious and ridiculous arguments used in this thread.
So, after getting tired of hearing the moaning about "don't criticize unless you try it" - despite it being this way all though NS1, I went ahead and finally got into a couple games. I must admit, Selwek has put a lot of work into it. I tip my hat to ANYONE who tries out new things for the sake of experimentation. There's nothing wrong with trying stuff.
As for the mod itself, I found the movement kinda like skating. I also found that hit registration seemed a bit off compared to the current build, so I'm wondering if he is using a pre-240 build as his template, and as such the old hit registration issues haven't been fixed. However, that's not what this thread is about.
That said, about the armory change? Would anyone be surprised if I said I still hate it? Since I do.
I get what people are looking at here. We have some people saying this is needed to discourage forward armories (which I never found to be a problem, but whatever) and we have others saying that no armor healing promotes teamwork.
On the first point, there are LOADS of ways to address a 'forward armory' issue, not the least of which is to only make an armory repair armor when it is being powered by a tech point power node. Or when there is a command chair nearby, or anything else along those lines. The bottom line is that you don't have to yank armor repair entirely to accomplish the same thing.
What's worse, I found the entire mechanic to be awkward. People dropping welders for someone else to weld them, and while they're screwing around doing that they get attacked and owned by aliens. This is an improvement? Again, if everyone was issued a free welder that wouldn't happen. In game one I was on mineshaft, which because of it's size meant more time between attacks. There was a bit more welding on that. In the second game I played on Tram we got rolled specifically because there was no armor healing at armory. Hardly anyone had enough time to try and weld one another, they died like flies with 100 health and no armor.
This was the FIRST AND ONLY NS2 game I have *ever* played where the marine team lost because they all died - despite having TWO command chairs, THREE IPs, and all the assorted fixins. (like obs in both bases, phase gates between the two etc) It was a joke, plain and simple. (longer marine respawns didn't help either)
On the 'teamwork' aspect, the whole thing felt completely contrived. One of the best things about teamwork is when people come together because they WANT to, not because they HAVE to.
People shouldn't feel forced, and that is exactly what this does.
Teamwork should be natural. Teamwork should be spontaneous. Teamwork should be something that rewards itself. When you artificially try and create teamwork you don't get teamwork at all. You get a bunch of people who are together because they have been forced to, not because they have to. You lose the psychological aspect of it.
Think of it like distress beacon. Does distress beacon create teamwork? No, it doesn't. Despite bringing the entire team together in one spot, people are forced to do so. As such, when the team arrives it's usually chaos. There is no semblance of teamwork at all since the circumstance is totally contrived. It's artificial.
Lastly, I just cannot stomach the fact that a person still cannot get armor repaired for free anywhere on the map. If welders were free and provided as stock equipment, I could swallow this change since everyone would be able to weld everyone else for no cost. Instead you have one team that gets free heals and the other has to pay for welders to get the same. Sorry, I just don't like it, and in its current state my opinion won't be changing.
So please no more "you haven't tried it" complaints. I've seen all I need to see.
your idea to have armor-healing super-armory at base doesn't change much.
the marines just phase to base, then phase back in a couple of seconds. is that fun for marines? having to phase back to base to get the nobrainer full heal? that's the real issue here - and armory change doesn't alter that in the slightest. it's not fun for marines to use forward armories either - run forward, get bit, run back to armory etc. it's an all-round boring strategy but it's still used because it's too strong to ignore.
in principle, your idea can be achieved with having a MAC in base near the armory. i disagree with your earlier claim that MAC's are expensive and impractical. a MAC costs 5 tres which is worth the cost because any marine sticking behind to weld structures is a marine that's unable to apply pressure to aliens or destroy a harvester etc...
i didn't feel 'forced' to weld other players. i didn't feel 'forced' to buy a welder every life. on the rare occasion where there was a bunch of marines running around with dented armour, then i bought a welder. but that's exactly the same reason why i'd buy a welder in b241...
i also find it shameful that this thread has been drawn out onto 15 pages. out of almost every change in the balance test mod, the removal of armory armor heal is probably the faintest change of all. it's a miniscule deterrent against the forward armory/turtle which simultaneously makes the MAC more viable... that's all.
What makes you think I'll read a post that probably insults me about twelve times and has no actual content beyond that? Try posting something without the tone of an angry teenager and people might bother to read and respond.
Makes assumptions about content without ever reading content and insults poster.
Berates those that dare give input without trying balance mod.
On the 'teamwork' aspect, the whole thing felt completely contrived. One of the best things about teamwork is when people come together because they WANT to, not because they HAVE to.
People shouldn't feel forced, and that is exactly what this does.
Teamwork should be natural. Teamwork should be spontaneous. Teamwork should be something that rewards itself. When you artificially try and create teamwork you don't get teamwork at all. You get a bunch of people who are together because they have been forced to, not because they have to. You lose the psychological aspect of it.
Ok, lets make this clear. Teamwork is mandatory. Vast majority of teamwork in NS2 is something you HAVE to do if you want to win. You HAVE to support your onos when attacking a heavily defended marine base, or the attack fails and you may lose an onos. You HAVE to accompany your exos with welders, or he will get raped by first two skulks that find him. You HAVE to push in groups or you will get dog-pilled by a group of skulks/lerks/fade/onos. You HAVE to have welders in your team, or you will get stuck at 100 hp and killed by first skulk.Natural Selection 2 is a team game. By its very nature, most of its features REQUIRE teamwork to work correctly. Having to use welder to repair armor is no different. Using that whole "forced teamwork" as an argument against it, while giving pass to every other instance of "forced teamwork" in the game is kinda silly.
Lastly, I just cannot stomach the fact that a person still cannot get armor repaired for free anywhere on the map. .
Neither could you before, unless you discount tres cost. And if thats the case, then MACs can easily repair your armor for free, and can do it anywhere on the map to boot. There is no real difference between the concept of "Armory repairs your armory" and "MACs repair you armor". Both are tools that have to be bought by tres, are completely controlled by commander and repair you without having to buy a welder.
If welders were free and provided as stock equipment, I could swallow this change since everyone would be able to weld everyone else for no cost. Instead you have one team that gets free heals and the other has to pay for welders to get the same. Sorry, I just don't like it, and in its current state my opinion won't be changing.
Free welders would do horrible things to an early game alien harass. They have to be researched and cost 5 pres in current build for a reason
That being said, being able to (SLOWLY) repair armor of friendly marines with your basic build tool (by facing a marine and pressing E), while welders could be researched and bought to repair building and repair marine armor at faster rate...That sounds like something,I would like to test.
What makes you think I'll read a post that probably insults me about twelve times and has no actual content beyond that? Try posting something without the tone of an angry teenager and people might bother to read and respond.
Makes assumptions about content without ever reading content and insults poster.
Berates those that dare give input without trying balance mod.
Posts in the thread just to attack another poster, without even bothering to pretend that he has something to contribute to the ongoing discussion.
When they tried this before, I remember not long after everyone hated it and it was soon reverted. The same will happen again. So lets just not do it in the first place. It will just be a repeat of last time. It was a worse then when armories had a limit to how huch they could heal and how much ammo they dispensed
I appreciate the hat tip but there was a vocal group from that thread who felt the bug that prevented weld icons from moving with players as well as others who liked the system but felt that with the massive performance issues in 215 (Anyone in beta at that point knows how terribad performance was) caused marines to have enough disadvantages already.
So no, not everyone hated it. In fact on the first page about 75% of posters supported it. The reason arguments in these threads get so out of hand is because people throw around EVERY, ALWAYS, and NEVER like those are ever good to use in an argument. One example and you've been refuted and I can provide at least 6 "in-favors" from page 1 of the thread from 215.
You've been refuted and your statement is invalid.
Here's a fact for you though: Armories not healing armor was already tried in build 215 and was REVERTED ( http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/1960449#Comment_1960449 , hat tip Tinker). It was tried. It didn't work. It was removed. Maybe there is some merit to those saying not to remove armor healing again.
If you just wanted to try it out, then I feel it was unjustly judged because of a bug!
The bug is, that the weld indicator wrench only updates ONCE; only the first time you see the target. After that marine has moved the wrench icon stays floating in that first spot you spotted him.
This way all the new players didn't get a proper hint as to what to do.
That bug is no longer here. Heck even back then people were suggesting AA armor heals as a compromise to the marines ability to effectively respawn anywhere on the map by touching the life cube. Most of the arguments that suggest that the time may be right to try it again have been made in both the old thread and this one (Since many of the old objections have been addressed in one form or another).
edit: for some extra mad, you know why counter strike beat quake as the #1 comp FPS? Sure as shit wasn't because CS had a higher skill ceiling was it, it was more accessible and less punishing on new/inexperienced players, know why CoD/BF enjoy hundreds of thousands of more players than NS or any source mod game ever has? Sure as shit isn't the incredible game play depth offered by CoD, I'm not saying casualing everything is great but adding in unintuitive, boring, passive game play elements is doing 0 favours to a game struggling to attract or keep the player base it has.
There's a reason I play a teamwork focused game with complex systems and not that garbage. Kthxbye.
Also, why do you bother to curse so much? Is it lack of vocabulary? We can't see what you're saying anyways since it just stars out so you might as well replace all those with tab spaces. Perhaps that's why your post came off as hostile to the person you were addressing?
know why CoD/BF enjoy hundreds of thousands of more players than NS or any source mod game ever has? Sure as shit isn't the incredible game play depth offered by CoD, I'm not saying casualing everything is great but adding in unintuitive, boring, passive game play elements is doing 0 favours to a game struggling to attract or keep the player base it has.
um, actually it's because of advertising and consolization.
your idea to have armor-healing super-armory at base doesn't change much. the marines just phase to base, then phase back in a couple of seconds. is that fun for marines? having to phase back to base to get the nobrainer full heal? that's the real issue here
It's a huge change if people are leaving the front lines for it. The "real issue" is taking away free heals, and by allowing people the ability to get healed in base that is no longer an issue. Many times phase gates are in locations with no armory anyway, so the only place to heal is main base.
out of almost every change in the balance test mod, the removal of armory armor heal is probably the faintest change of all. it's a miniscule deterrent against the forward armory/turtle which simultaneously makes the MAC more viable... that's all.
Sorry, this is where we'll disagree. The armory change is huge in my opinion and alters a fundamental gameplay principle that should never be changed.
On the 'teamwork' aspect, the whole thing felt completely contrived. One of the best things about teamwork is when people come together because they WANT to, not because they HAVE to. People shouldn't feel forced, and that is exactly what this does.
Ok, lets make this clear. Teamwork is mandatory. Vast majority of teamwork in NS2 is something you HAVE to do if you want to win.
Back up a minute here. First off I think you can confusing a team game with team WORK. Yeah this is a team game so in a most basic way people are forced to work as a team. Marines can't very well hang out in hive rooms protecting assets.
However, team work is VOLUNTARY. The extent that a person needs to engage in 'team work' can vary. Some people need to work more as a team than others. Some don't need to work as a team at all and their team can still win. That doesn't mean that greater levels of teamwork won't improve a team's chances to win, since it usually will. However, that teamwork needs to happen because people WANT to do it. No one is forced to run around as gorge behind an Onos. The Onos can run back to a crag farm to heal if need be. Will an Onos be more effective with a gorge healing his behind? Sure. Is it mandatory? No. The Onos won't magically disintegrate if the gorge isn't there.
No armor healing is forced teamwork. It's FORCING people to do something they shouldn't HAVE to do. If someone wants to buy a welder and weld people they should be doing because they want to, not because it is the only way in the game to heal up.
Lastly, I just cannot stomach the fact that a person still cannot get armor repaired for free anywhere on the map. .
Neither could you before, unless you discount tres cost. And if thats the case, then MACs can easily repair your armor for free, and can do it anywhere on the map to boot. There is no real difference between the concept of "Armory repairs your armory" and "MACs repair you armor".
First off, the armory is usually the FIRST building built, and if it isn't it's the second. It's a pre-requisite for things like an observatory, so no armory, no phase gates. It's a mandatory piece of hardware that will exist at the start of every game. MACs are easily killed, don't heal on command (by the person wanting the armor repair) and need to be purchased from yet ANOTHER building. Any attempt to compare an armory to a MAC is inane.
You can't have it both ways. If the MAC is supposedly "the same" as an armory, then you won't mind having armories repair armor now will you? The reality is that MACs usually don't come out until mid game at earliest since marines can't afford it.
Free welders would do horrible things to an early game alien harass. They have to be researched and cost 5 pres in current build for a reason
Yeah, but marines don't have to repair their own armor now, do they?
You can't have it both ways. Yeah they cost a few t-res to research, and a few p-res to buy, but marines usually don't buy them since they don't need them.
Marines either need to be able to freely (without any commander interaction) repair their armor for NO cost, or they need free welders. Having armor repair at the armory satisfies this.
One of the reasons this was tried and removed was because this changed the balance of the game. I quoted Charlie above when he said that armor is one of the single most important balance elements IN THE GAME. We can't go screw around with it like it's unimportant. Armor matters and one could easily alter the outcome of a game because of it.
I can't support this change. We can continue to debate it, but my opinion won't be changing.
Even though Xao comes off as a raving madman, I support both Him and Savant along with their arguments against removing Armor Healing.
Those that are in favor of this change have to take into account that this has been tried on numerous occasions in both NS1/2. For NS1, while it was inherently disabled on mod-free servers, I would argue a vast majority of servers ran AMX Mod, which included things such as Lerk Lift, Ladder Mode, Admin Tools, Electrified TFacs/RTs (before it became official), and other oddities (some good and most bad), one of which was Selfweld. The latter I would argue was almost required for a successful Marine HA Train against Tank/Walker Fade and Onos.
However, the real issue at hand is how this would ultimately affect Pub play, because that is the majority of the base. This change seems appealing for the smaller competitive level, but is redundant as competitive-level players already do this and the welder is already an incredibly valuable tool at A1 or higher. Another reason against this is NS2 is faster than NS1 where this concept worked fine. You had more time to stop and throw welders around and weld each other up. NS2 has smaller maps, faster pacing, and faster movement (in general).
In NS2, especially on larger servers such as KKG or National Gaming, you will be hard pressed to find Joe Pubber stopping to weld anything let alone a fellow Marine. I myself play often on the KKG 24 slot servers, which are fast and frantic. As a Marine, I generally put myself in the "base maintenance/repair" or "JP>EXO Guardian" roles; not only because most will not do it, but I actually enjoy these roles. However, I would say that the majority of players do not enjoy welding, anything...ever, much less each other.
Weld or DIE, is not really a good motivator as Joe Pubber will just stop playing the game altogether (out of frustration or disinterest).
Back up a minute here. First off I think you can confusing a team game with team WORK. Yeah this is a team game so in a most basic way people are forced to work as a team. Marines can't very well hang out in hive rooms protecting assets.
However, team work is VOLUNTARY. The extent that a person needs to engage in 'team work' can vary. Some people need to work more as a team than others. Some don't need to work as a team at all and their team can still win. That doesn't mean that greater levels of teamwork won't improve a team's chances to win, since it usually will. However, that teamwork needs to happen because people WANT to do it. No one is forced to run around as gorge behind an Onos. The Onos can run back to a crag farm to heal if need be. Will an Onos be more effective with a gorge healing his behind? Sure. Is it mandatory? No. The Onos won't magically disintegrate if the gorge isn't there.
No armor healing is forced teamwork. It's FORCING people to do something they shouldn't HAVE to do. If someone wants to buy a welder and weld people they should be doing because they want to, not because it is the only way in the game to heal up.
You can see teamwork as something mandatory, as in that you need it to win, or you can see teamwork as something voluntary as in that you don't really need it to function. It doesn't matter either way as it doesn't really change my argument. It is purely arguing semantics.
If you see teamwork as something you NEED to do to win (and you NEED it to win, ask any side with 5-6 rookie players in it, how does playing without a shred of teamwork worked out for them) then yes, welding armor with welders is mandatory. So is supporting exos, supporting onos, moving as group etc...
If you see teamwork as something you DON'T NEED to function, well... its the same. Yes exo wont magically disappear just because he tries to push alone into enemy hive. Nor wont Onos spontaneously explode just because he doesn't have allies to support him. However nor does marine instantly disintegrate just because he doesn't have anyone to weld his armor. He can still function, albeit with an disadvantage just like lone onos or lone exo can.
Lastly, I just cannot stomach the fact that a First off, the armory is usually the FIRST building built, and if it isn't it's the second. It's a pre-requisite for things like an observatory, so no armory, no phase gates. It's a mandatory piece of hardware that will exist at the start of every game. MACs are easily killed, don't heal on command (by the person wanting the armor repair) and need to be purchased from yet ANOTHER building. Any attempt to compare an armory to a MAC is inane.
Indeed. Armory is used to sell weapons, restore ammo, restore health, restore armor, research weapon tech, as prerequisite to many building, as barricade and probably few other things I forget. Soo.... why exactly do we have to have a single magic box as a panacea to all marine worries? Especially when we have other ways to restore armor, ways that are completely overshadow by said magical box to the point where they can as well be removed from game? Armory is over-cluttered with functions, just for the sake of convenience.
You can't have it both ways. If the MAC is supposedly "the same" as an armory, then you won't mind having armories repair armor now will you? The reality is that MACs usually don't come out until mid game at earliest since marines can't afford it.
Armories have additional functions besides repairing armor. MACs sole function is repairing armor. MACs don;t come out until mid-game because they are not needed. They are an unnecessary luxury and you can play whole match, or whole 100 matches without fielding one, because the whole POINT of having MACs is fulfilled by armory. Removing ability to repair armor from armories boost MACs worth tremendously without requiring any other change.
Yeah, but marines don't have to repair their own armor now, do they?
You can't have it both ways. Yeah they cost a few t-res to research, and a few p-res to buy, but marines usually don't buy them since they don't need them.
Well... they need them now. Why exactly is giving additional worth to otherwise ignored and unused feature a bad thing?
One of the reasons this was tried and removed was because this changed the balance of the game.
Yes, because it was introduced at a point where marines were mess and hit reg was horrible. Neither is true now. Using this particular argument again and again, while ignoring it was repeatedly debunked is getting tiresome..
I quoted Charlie above when he said that armor is one of the single most important balance elements IN THE GAME. We can't go screw around with it like it's unimportant. Armor matters and one could easily alter the outcome of a game because of it.
So is movement. But we can apparently screw and experiment with it as we please, huh?
I'm very glad that you finally decided to try out the mod, Savant.
It's actually a shame that we can't test out just this change in isolation for the sake of a fair test for its effect on balance (because let's face it, more expensive marine upgrades and alien movement (which is TROLOLOLOP) alone are enough to give marines quite a headache at present), but I accept your opinion of it, based on trying it.
Locklear's hit the nail on the head re: A2/A3 being waaaay too strong in turtles - and in fact even with the current changes in the balance mod, we had a miraculous marine comeback in a 96 minute game the other day. A true epic - and I was only there for the last 40 min of that game!
They may be even more things required to allow a team that's massively ahead to make a swift and decisive finish, while boosting the lagging team just a touch during the early/mod game to minimise snowball during these times (ie first encounter shouldn't decide the match quite as often as it does). I see the armour change as one part of a much wider set of changes that would be required to achieve that goal.
I wonder just how many times Joe Pubber would run back to the armoury, wondering why it's not restoring his armour. If it's more than one, he may well be a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic to begin with...
The lack of people willing to weld is clearly not a universal thing - I personally haven't found this when I've played, but others in this thread have found it a problem. That is PRECISELY the reason I've been banging on at people to get in the server and test it out, especially if they're sceptical of the change. More bodies: specifically, more bodies who are most critical of this change, is a good thing to work out where it might not work, where any changes could be required (and therefore made in subsequent builds).
It's definitely worth testing out cheaper welders, hey and free welders: I'm all for the experiment. While I personally like where it's at right now in the BT, maybe it's a bit too far for the majority.
Back up a minute here. First off I think you can confusing a team game with team WORK. ... No armor healing is forced teamwork. It's FORCING people to do something they shouldn't HAVE to do. If someone wants to buy a welder and weld people they should be doing because they want to, not because it is the only way in the game to heal up.
You can see teamwork as something mandatory, as in that you need it to win, or you can see teamwork as something voluntary as in that you don't really need it to function. It doesn't matter either way as it doesn't really change my argument. It is purely arguing semantics.
It's not though. There is a huge difference between these concepts.
The best teamwork is when people take it upon THEMSELVES to do something or make a sacrifice. That's miles away from 'working as a team to win'. Of course you need to work as a 'team', but working as a team is not team work.
Your idea of team work seems to be "Well we want more teamwork so instead of providing incentives to players, we'll punish them and take away free armor repair at the armory. Then they'll have to do team work."
No. They won't. All you will achieve is to piss off some people who feel like they are being forced to spend their PERSONAL resources on welders. Why can't people let players play the freaking game without trying to pick their pockets? We already have mines which are a marine pres-sink, now you want them spending more pres on welders? No. Sorry but I disagree.
Armory is used to sell weapons, restore ammo, restore health, restore armor, research weapon tech, as prerequisite to many building, as barricade and probably few other things I forget. Soo.... why exactly do we have to have a single magic box as a panacea to all marine worries?
First, because when we had the commander doing that (as he did in NS1) it made the job needlessly complex. Second, because it's an asymmetric game.
Remember, with aliens they have their armory 'built-in'. If they want to grab an 'bro-fist EXO' they can just click evolve to fade. They don't need to click on a hive or ask the commander for it. They also don't need the commander to 'unlock' the fade with research. The alien player is free to do whatever he wants with his personal resources, and he can choose any lifeform he wants if he can afford it.
The marines have to research EVERYTHING. Even welders (in the main game) aren't researched despite how cheap and quickly they can be. When a shotgun is able to be purchased, the commander has PAID to have that tech researched. Why shouldn't a marine be able to buy it freely?
Why shouldn't a marine be able to heal health and armor like any opponent on the other team? You can't make one team pay for it and not another. It just does not work.
Especially when we have other ways to restore armor, ways that are completely overshadow by said magical box to the point where they can as well be removed from game? Armory is over-cluttered with functions, just for the sake of convenience.
Where else would you have people buy guns? Would you rather they nanodrop so that a marine could buy it anywhere on the map? The armory is the hub of the marine game. That's what should make it such a big target.
It doesn't matter if marines have TWENTY ways to restore armor if they all cost personal res. You don't balance a game with one team getting free and easy heals and the other having to pay for them.
MACs sole function is repairing armor. MACs don;t come out until mid-game because they are not needed.
Sorry, but you are inaccurate.
MACs can weld, yes. But MACs also build structures and their EMP charge can drain enemy energy. Perhaps you've never used that function.
Nevertheless, the reason you don't usually see MACs in the early game is since they cost RESOURCES. Maybe you think that the marines are swimming in res, I can assure you, they are not. A single MAC costs 15 res when you add in the cost of the structure. For what? Something that is easy to kill and moves slowly unless you pay MORE res to buy an upgrade?
MACs have a narrow role, and repairing marine armor was never part of that design.
One of the reasons this was tried and removed was because this changed the balance of the game.
Yes, because it was introduced at a point where marines were mess and hit reg was horrible. Neither is true now. Using this particular argument again and again, while ignoring it was repeatedly debunked is getting tiresome..
Sorry Charlie, but you have debunked nothing. Speaking of Charlie, I posted a quote from him on why armor is so important to game balance. That, my dear friend, is the primary reason why they couldn't implement this change.
Let's not get into BS here. When the gorge had terrible hit registration, you didn't see the devs give it extra health or armor now did you? You don't base gameplay features around balance.
This is precisely why they released a HUGE alien patch when aliens were winning 60% of games. The devs said that balance is *INDEPENDENT* of features. So sorry, the BS about hit reg being the reason it was yanked is just that BS. How many dev quotes do you want that explicitly state that features and balance are two different things? How many quotes will it take?
The developers will NEVER alter how they develop features because of existing balance. If they did then they would never get anything done since the game is never balanced.
Yeah, but marines don't have to repair their own armor now, do they? You can't have it both ways. Yeah they cost a few t-res to research, and a few p-res to buy, but marines usually don't buy them since they don't need them.
Well... they need them now. Why exactly is giving additional worth to otherwise ignored and unused feature a bad thing?
Because it is CONTRIVED. You're not giving additional worth to anything, you're needlessly sucking res from the marine p-res pool, and destroying any semblance of balance.
Like I said, never in all the NS2 games have I played did I *EVER* seen the marines lose so badly because of DEATHS. Marines had 2 comm chairs, 3 IPs, observatories at each, advanced armory, proto lab was built etc. Yet the marines lost since they were all easily killed because of hit and run attacks ON THEIR BASES that they could not heal up from. While fades and lerks LOLed their way off to a nearby crag, marines would heal up. But with only 100 health they are only a two-hit kill. They dropped so fast that the game was OVER.
Aliens never killed a single freaking structure and they won the game.
You want me to back that? Sorry, I respectfully decline.
Welding armor isn't forced with this change, it's encouraged. You can be an effective marine without armor if you are good enough
Com'on Locklear, let's be frank here - if you are "good enough" you can wander the map with 1 hp and no armor and be 'effective'. The reality is that 99% of players aren't that good.
Like I said above, if welders were free I could support this change since it has not increased marine expenses. However, I have yet to see anyone provide justification on why marines should have personal res sucked out of their p-res pool just to heal up, when aliens won't have to do the same thing. It's a fundamental imbalance.
Charlie has stated that the game is balanced around ARMOR. Not health but ARMOR. It's armor that allows the marine's LMG to do one kind of damage to an Onos while the EXO minigun does another. You can never balance the game with health alone since you can never balance any two matchups. Armor is what allows two different units to do two different kinds of damage to the same opponent.
Anything that impacts this will upset game balance on a fundamental level.
Comments
When build 240 dropped "a small group of mostly blind naysayers" screamed to the high heavens and were posting their good byes. Lo and behold UWE listened, and they publicly admitted they were caving to a small but vocal minority of players.
The armor change just won't wash. I know people disagree with me, that's totally fine, but the reality is if you think the average Joe pubber will embrace this change then you're in for a surprize.
I haven't posted in this thread lately as I have been trying to get into a game with this modded balance build, since I really want to silence those who use the fact that I haven't played it to somehow justify why I am not allowed to object to it. I'm still going to try to get a game in, then I will post my honest opinion about it.
My suggestion? Leave the armor change as a mod and let server admins decide. Then players will vote with their feet. Game design 101 states that you NEVER force changes on an unwilling player base. If you do then you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.
a) ignoring the "mostly blind" part, which hinted at the fact that only about 2 people in this thread who are against it have actually tried it,
b) equating the "small group of naysayers" in this thread to pretty much everyone who takes this game seriously, i.e. the core playerbase, complaining about the 240 skulk change (which, I would say, is quite a lot of the same people who are actually for the armoury change) and
c) ignoring the fact that the part people were by far most upset about in 240 was a bug that was never intended to be in the game.
Also, like I have said several times throughout this thread, if a majority of "Joe pubbers" doesn't like the change and it fucks up the game with no one ever being welded, I'm sure everyone will be happy to revert. Not gonna happen though, as we have established about 5 pages ago that absolutely nothing backs your disastrous predictions and random people as well as established players alike mostly like the change.
You mean they "caved" by fixing a bug that affected the movement in a way they did not intended? Or are you talking about something else? Or are you hinting that the "bug" was just excuse so that they could save face as they caved to the pressure? :-/
I am kinda confused. Why exactly do you think, that, among all the complexities and teamwork that they need to learn and perform so that the marines are able to even function is this the one they wont be able to stomach for some reason? They wont care unless it negatively affect balance in significant way. Which it wont if it is accompanied with sufficient alien changes.
There will be ALWAYS a subset of players that dislike upcoming change and will bitch and moan until they get used to it. EVERY balance change is forced onto at least part of the player base. Thats not "cutting off your nose to spite your face" thats basic process of balancing the game.
I expect that the devs will be very reticent to implement any changes to fundamental game elements like this, especially after what happened with build 240.
I'm talking about the changes to movement that had NOTHING to do with that bug. Shall I get you a quote from one of the devs on that?
I've said it up-thread, but the concept is really simple.
You don't make people pay - directly or indirectly - to heal up to full health.
It's like suggesting people pay personal resources to spawn after dying. You just don't do it.
By all means do. And I mean that genuinely. I might have missed that particular part of the whole back-and-forth discussion about 240 movement changes.
You mean like armory? Because armory counts as "make people pay - directly or indirectly - to heal up to full health" about as much as welder does.
lol, what? of course you do.
One requires a marginal personal sacrifice to encourage teamwork, the other would just be downright insane. Also, again, you aren't in a position to decide for everyone what can and can't be done. The overall feedback on this is like >90% positive and the only way to find out if the average pubber will like it is to actually test it on the average pubber.
Granted I've only played on merican BT servers on early hours and most the games aliens already had 2 hives but mid game I don't see what marines have up their sleeves to compete with alien tech now.
Accel was halved and 'that bug' allowed people to gain speed on same surfaces again which was taken out again in 241, something most comp players absolutely fucking hate as walljumping is reduced back to floor wall floor wall floor object floor wall, instead of floor wall wall wall object wall wall floor wall wall.
You didn't establish shit 5 pages ago except you managed to play 2k hours on some random server that had no self weld mod, no F4 and you were an admin on, sometime in 04/05 onwards when NS 1 was already dead in most countries outside of Europe. Everyone else with NS 1 time has already posted the blindingly obvious fact it was a horrible aspect of NS 1 and nearly every AMX server (all of NS1 servers) were using multiple 'self weld' or 'weld your own armour welding others' kind of plug in, I already pointed out nearly every server in ausns used the mod which you chose to ignore as it shattered your stupid argument of forced team work = good game play, or passive game play = good game play.
No one is doubting that in this small as fuck, comp player/wanna be comp player biased sample set playing bt servers that this isn't a problem, most of these people are well versed in buying welders once shotguns are out and relying on welding and welder swapping to sustain themselves in pushes backed up by comms who med. The people this will most effect is average joe random who gets bit twice defending the natural expansion, comes back to base, stands around 30 more seconds trying to figure out why his armour won't come back and how he can get other people to weld him before he ventures back out into the real world to be of use to the marine team.
People suiciding/binding kill in console/F4 was done in NS 1, it's a shame you never left the cocoon of 1 server to see it a lot in 1.04/2.0/3.0. In current builds now almost no comp player will stop to weld an RT, it's simply easier to let it die and re build it later much faster, mechanics/game culture are already in place that don't support this "everyone will enjoy this new level of team work by having to stop and weld each other in base 24/7", pubs struggle enough to weld obs/power/pg, why would introducing a more punishing approach to armour make everyone 180 and become completely competent in welding.
Seriously defies common fucking sense, it's like hearing about nano shield being OP, if it was so fucking OP then why doesn't even comp game rush a 2nd CC and drop nano and win every early engagement/game? Oh it's not OP at all, it's OP when a 3/3 SG JP marine goes through a phase with 10 med packs around it on. Same deal with armouries and armour, marines lose plenty enough pushes and bases with armouries in current patch in comp and pub games, how in the fuck is this supposed to add to a game by taking away and who the fuck seriously wants to spend more time building/repairing in a FPS, you know who builds/repairs shit in RTS, the peons, minions,no bodies, people don't want to accurately replicate the feeling of being a peon in a FPS. The one sole example about an armoury helping a comp player win an engagement vs multiple aliens was debunked by the player himself in the forums, no one else with video evidence of how hard done by an alien team was by an evil armour giving armoury have been presented since.
Skulk movement got dropped on its arse and it has been nothing but tears on the forums, now you want to make the marine basic game play equally as harsh to the average player after seeing how well it went down for aliens?
edit: for some extra mad, you know why counter strike beat quake as the #1 comp FPS? Sure as shit wasn't because CS had a higher skill ceiling was it, it was more accessible and less punishing on new/inexperienced players, know why CoD/BF enjoy hundreds of thousands of more players than NS or any source mod game ever has? Sure as shit isn't the incredible game play depth offered by CoD, I'm not saying casualing everything is great but adding in unintuitive, boring, passive game play elements is doing 0 favours to a game struggling to attract or keep the player base it has.
EDIT: If you want to test this mod now is your chance. Please do so.
What a load of complete unsubstantiated pap.
Let me see if I understand you. Everyone who disagrees with you has clueless "opinions" while your opinions are actually logical, infutable reason that invalidates the disagreement. And since they're clearly wrong, you won't even read them because they are probably insulting you for some strange reason.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Your opinions are opinions. Everyone else's opinions are no less valid than yours. So maybe you should climb down off the high gorge.
Here's a fact for you though: Armories not healing armor was already tried in build 215 and was REVERTED ( http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/1960449#Comment_1960449 , hat tip Tinker). It was tried. It didn't work. It was removed. Maybe there is some merit to those saying not to remove armor healing again.
Thus the burden is now on those supporting the armor healing removal to make the case that it should be put in yet again. I remain unconvinced.
As for the mod itself, I found the movement kinda like skating. I also found that hit registration seemed a bit off compared to the current build, so I'm wondering if he is using a pre-240 build as his template, and as such the old hit registration issues haven't been fixed. However, that's not what this thread is about.
That said, about the armory change? Would anyone be surprised if I said I still hate it? Since I do.
I get what people are looking at here. We have some people saying this is needed to discourage forward armories (which I never found to be a problem, but whatever) and we have others saying that no armor healing promotes teamwork.
On the first point, there are LOADS of ways to address a 'forward armory' issue, not the least of which is to only make an armory repair armor when it is being powered by a tech point power node. Or when there is a command chair nearby, or anything else along those lines. The bottom line is that you don't have to yank armor repair entirely to accomplish the same thing.
What's worse, I found the entire mechanic to be awkward. People dropping welders for someone else to weld them, and while they're screwing around doing that they get attacked and owned by aliens. This is an improvement? Again, if everyone was issued a free welder that wouldn't happen. In game one I was on mineshaft, which because of it's size meant more time between attacks. There was a bit more welding on that. In the second game I played on Tram we got rolled specifically because there was no armor healing at armory. Hardly anyone had enough time to try and weld one another, they died like flies with 100 health and no armor.
This was the FIRST AND ONLY NS2 game I have *ever* played where the marine team lost because they all died - despite having TWO command chairs, THREE IPs, and all the assorted fixins. (like obs in both bases, phase gates between the two etc) It was a joke, plain and simple. (longer marine respawns didn't help either)
On the 'teamwork' aspect, the whole thing felt completely contrived. One of the best things about teamwork is when people come together because they WANT to, not because they HAVE to.
People shouldn't feel forced, and that is exactly what this does.
Teamwork should be natural. Teamwork should be spontaneous. Teamwork should be something that rewards itself. When you artificially try and create teamwork you don't get teamwork at all. You get a bunch of people who are together because they have been forced to, not because they have to. You lose the psychological aspect of it.
Think of it like distress beacon. Does distress beacon create teamwork? No, it doesn't. Despite bringing the entire team together in one spot, people are forced to do so. As such, when the team arrives it's usually chaos. There is no semblance of teamwork at all since the circumstance is totally contrived. It's artificial.
Lastly, I just cannot stomach the fact that a person still cannot get armor repaired for free anywhere on the map. If welders were free and provided as stock equipment, I could swallow this change since everyone would be able to weld everyone else for no cost. Instead you have one team that gets free heals and the other has to pay for welders to get the same. Sorry, I just don't like it, and in its current state my opinion won't be changing.
So please no more "you haven't tried it" complaints. I've seen all I need to see.
Psst: it was removed because at the time marines had an already abysmal win rate. There were massive performance issues and really poor hit reg which affected marines more than aliens. I was there, I played that build and all the ones before it. Just because it "didn't work" then does not instantly make it not work now. Marine playability has massively improved since the beta. Referencing build 215 is essentially a red herring. If we are going to make arguments lets make them using the CURRENT state of the game or in this case the BALANCE MOD. The balance mod should be more what peoples arguments are about since this change comes paired with a host of other balance tweaks and overhauls.
I happen to like the change, others won't because they are concerned about pub balance at the lowest common denominator. Honestly, there have been a lot of fallacious and ridiculous arguments used in this thread.
your idea to have armor-healing super-armory at base doesn't change much.
the marines just phase to base, then phase back in a couple of seconds. is that fun for marines? having to phase back to base to get the nobrainer full heal? that's the real issue here - and armory change doesn't alter that in the slightest. it's not fun for marines to use forward armories either - run forward, get bit, run back to armory etc. it's an all-round boring strategy but it's still used because it's too strong to ignore.
in principle, your idea can be achieved with having a MAC in base near the armory. i disagree with your earlier claim that MAC's are expensive and impractical. a MAC costs 5 tres which is worth the cost because any marine sticking behind to weld structures is a marine that's unable to apply pressure to aliens or destroy a harvester etc...
i didn't feel 'forced' to weld other players. i didn't feel 'forced' to buy a welder every life. on the rare occasion where there was a bunch of marines running around with dented armour, then i bought a welder. but that's exactly the same reason why i'd buy a welder in b241...
i also find it shameful that this thread has been drawn out onto 15 pages. out of almost every change in the balance test mod, the removal of armory armor heal is probably the faintest change of all. it's a miniscule deterrent against the forward armory/turtle which simultaneously makes the MAC more viable... that's all.
Makes assumptions about content without ever reading content and insults poster.
Berates those that dare give input without trying balance mod.
Ok, lets make this clear. Teamwork is mandatory. Vast majority of teamwork in NS2 is something you HAVE to do if you want to win. You HAVE to support your onos when attacking a heavily defended marine base, or the attack fails and you may lose an onos. You HAVE to accompany your exos with welders, or he will get raped by first two skulks that find him. You HAVE to push in groups or you will get dog-pilled by a group of skulks/lerks/fade/onos. You HAVE to have welders in your team, or you will get stuck at 100 hp and killed by first skulk.Natural Selection 2 is a team game. By its very nature, most of its features REQUIRE teamwork to work correctly. Having to use welder to repair armor is no different. Using that whole "forced teamwork" as an argument against it, while giving pass to every other instance of "forced teamwork" in the game is kinda silly.
Neither could you before, unless you discount tres cost. And if thats the case, then MACs can easily repair your armor for free, and can do it anywhere on the map to boot. There is no real difference between the concept of "Armory repairs your armory" and "MACs repair you armor". Both are tools that have to be bought by tres, are completely controlled by commander and repair you without having to buy a welder.
Free welders would do horrible things to an early game alien harass. They have to be researched and cost 5 pres in current build for a reason
That being said, being able to (SLOWLY) repair armor of friendly marines with your basic build tool (by facing a marine and pressing E), while welders could be researched and bought to repair building and repair marine armor at faster rate...That sounds like something,I would like to test.
Posts in the thread just to attack another poster, without even bothering to pretend that he has something to contribute to the ongoing discussion.
So no, not everyone hated it. In fact on the first page about 75% of posters supported it. The reason arguments in these threads get so out of hand is because people throw around EVERY, ALWAYS, and NEVER like those are ever good to use in an argument. One example and you've been refuted and I can provide at least 6 "in-favors" from page 1 of the thread from 215.
You've been refuted and your statement is invalid.
Your right it didn't work, there was a bug
That bug is no longer here. Heck even back then people were suggesting AA armor heals as a compromise to the marines ability to effectively respawn anywhere on the map by touching the life cube. Most of the arguments that suggest that the time may be right to try it again have been made in both the old thread and this one (Since many of the old objections have been addressed in one form or another).
There's a reason I play a teamwork focused game with complex systems and not that garbage. Kthxbye.
Also, why do you bother to curse so much? Is it lack of vocabulary? We can't see what you're saying anyways since it just stars out so you might as well replace all those with tab spaces. Perhaps that's why your post came off as hostile to the person you were addressing?
um, actually it's because of advertising and consolization.
Sorry, this is where we'll disagree. The armory change is huge in my opinion and alters a fundamental gameplay principle that should never be changed.
Back up a minute here. First off I think you can confusing a team game with team WORK. Yeah this is a team game so in a most basic way people are forced to work as a team. Marines can't very well hang out in hive rooms protecting assets.
However, team work is VOLUNTARY. The extent that a person needs to engage in 'team work' can vary. Some people need to work more as a team than others. Some don't need to work as a team at all and their team can still win. That doesn't mean that greater levels of teamwork won't improve a team's chances to win, since it usually will. However, that teamwork needs to happen because people WANT to do it. No one is forced to run around as gorge behind an Onos. The Onos can run back to a crag farm to heal if need be. Will an Onos be more effective with a gorge healing his behind? Sure. Is it mandatory? No. The Onos won't magically disintegrate if the gorge isn't there.
No armor healing is forced teamwork. It's FORCING people to do something they shouldn't HAVE to do. If someone wants to buy a welder and weld people they should be doing because they want to, not because it is the only way in the game to heal up. First off, the armory is usually the FIRST building built, and if it isn't it's the second. It's a pre-requisite for things like an observatory, so no armory, no phase gates. It's a mandatory piece of hardware that will exist at the start of every game. MACs are easily killed, don't heal on command (by the person wanting the armor repair) and need to be purchased from yet ANOTHER building. Any attempt to compare an armory to a MAC is inane.
You can't have it both ways. If the MAC is supposedly "the same" as an armory, then you won't mind having armories repair armor now will you? The reality is that MACs usually don't come out until mid game at earliest since marines can't afford it.
Yeah, but marines don't have to repair their own armor now, do they?
You can't have it both ways. Yeah they cost a few t-res to research, and a few p-res to buy, but marines usually don't buy them since they don't need them.
Marines either need to be able to freely (without any commander interaction) repair their armor for NO cost, or they need free welders. Having armor repair at the armory satisfies this.
One of the reasons this was tried and removed was because this changed the balance of the game. I quoted Charlie above when he said that armor is one of the single most important balance elements IN THE GAME. We can't go screw around with it like it's unimportant. Armor matters and one could easily alter the outcome of a game because of it.
I can't support this change. We can continue to debate it, but my opinion won't be changing.
Those that are in favor of this change have to take into account that this has been tried on numerous occasions in both NS1/2. For NS1, while it was inherently disabled on mod-free servers, I would argue a vast majority of servers ran AMX Mod, which included things such as Lerk Lift, Ladder Mode, Admin Tools, Electrified TFacs/RTs (before it became official), and other oddities (some good and most bad), one of which was Selfweld. The latter I would argue was almost required for a successful Marine HA Train against Tank/Walker Fade and Onos.
However, the real issue at hand is how this would ultimately affect Pub play, because that is the majority of the base. This change seems appealing for the smaller competitive level, but is redundant as competitive-level players already do this and the welder is already an incredibly valuable tool at A1 or higher. Another reason against this is NS2 is faster than NS1 where this concept worked fine. You had more time to stop and throw welders around and weld each other up. NS2 has smaller maps, faster pacing, and faster movement (in general).
In NS2, especially on larger servers such as KKG or National Gaming, you will be hard pressed to find Joe Pubber stopping to weld anything let alone a fellow Marine. I myself play often on the KKG 24 slot servers, which are fast and frantic. As a Marine, I generally put myself in the "base maintenance/repair" or "JP>EXO Guardian" roles; not only because most will not do it, but I actually enjoy these roles. However, I would say that the majority of players do not enjoy welding, anything...ever, much less each other.
Weld or DIE, is not really a good motivator as Joe Pubber will just stop playing the game altogether (out of frustration or disinterest).
You can see teamwork as something mandatory, as in that you need it to win, or you can see teamwork as something voluntary as in that you don't really need it to function. It doesn't matter either way as it doesn't really change my argument. It is purely arguing semantics.
If you see teamwork as something you NEED to do to win (and you NEED it to win, ask any side with 5-6 rookie players in it, how does playing without a shred of teamwork worked out for them) then yes, welding armor with welders is mandatory. So is supporting exos, supporting onos, moving as group etc...
If you see teamwork as something you DON'T NEED to function, well... its the same. Yes exo wont magically disappear just because he tries to push alone into enemy hive. Nor wont Onos spontaneously explode just because he doesn't have allies to support him. However nor does marine instantly disintegrate just because he doesn't have anyone to weld his armor. He can still function, albeit with an disadvantage just like lone onos or lone exo can.
Indeed. Armory is used to sell weapons, restore ammo, restore health, restore armor, research weapon tech, as prerequisite to many building, as barricade and probably few other things I forget. Soo.... why exactly do we have to have a single magic box as a panacea to all marine worries? Especially when we have other ways to restore armor, ways that are completely overshadow by said magical box to the point where they can as well be removed from game? Armory is over-cluttered with functions, just for the sake of convenience.
Armories have additional functions besides repairing armor. MACs sole function is repairing armor. MACs don;t come out until mid-game because they are not needed. They are an unnecessary luxury and you can play whole match, or whole 100 matches without fielding one, because the whole POINT of having MACs is fulfilled by armory. Removing ability to repair armor from armories boost MACs worth tremendously without requiring any other change.
Well... they need them now. Why exactly is giving additional worth to otherwise ignored and unused feature a bad thing?
Yes, because it was introduced at a point where marines were mess and hit reg was horrible. Neither is true now. Using this particular argument again and again, while ignoring it was repeatedly debunked is getting tiresome..
So is movement. But we can apparently screw and experiment with it as we please, huh?
You can be an effective marine without armor if you are good enough - having good teamplay and keeping each other welded only amplifies that.
Once Armor 2/3 is up you shouldn't be able to restore it so easily - it's way too strong in turtles.
It's actually a shame that we can't test out just this change in isolation for the sake of a fair test for its effect on balance (because let's face it, more expensive marine upgrades and alien movement (which is TROLOLOLOP) alone are enough to give marines quite a headache at present), but I accept your opinion of it, based on trying it.
Locklear's hit the nail on the head re: A2/A3 being waaaay too strong in turtles - and in fact even with the current changes in the balance mod, we had a miraculous marine comeback in a 96 minute game the other day. A true epic - and I was only there for the last 40 min of that game!
They may be even more things required to allow a team that's massively ahead to make a swift and decisive finish, while boosting the lagging team just a touch during the early/mod game to minimise snowball during these times (ie first encounter shouldn't decide the match quite as often as it does). I see the armour change as one part of a much wider set of changes that would be required to achieve that goal.
I wonder just how many times Joe Pubber would run back to the armoury, wondering why it's not restoring his armour. If it's more than one, he may well be a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic to begin with...
The lack of people willing to weld is clearly not a universal thing - I personally haven't found this when I've played, but others in this thread have found it a problem. That is PRECISELY the reason I've been banging on at people to get in the server and test it out, especially if they're sceptical of the change. More bodies: specifically, more bodies who are most critical of this change, is a good thing to work out where it might not work, where any changes could be required (and therefore made in subsequent builds).
It's definitely worth testing out cheaper welders, hey and free welders: I'm all for the experiment. While I personally like where it's at right now in the BT, maybe it's a bit too far for the majority.
The best teamwork is when people take it upon THEMSELVES to do something or make a sacrifice. That's miles away from 'working as a team to win'. Of course you need to work as a 'team', but working as a team is not team work.
Your idea of team work seems to be "Well we want more teamwork so instead of providing incentives to players, we'll punish them and take away free armor repair at the armory. Then they'll have to do team work."
No. They won't. All you will achieve is to piss off some people who feel like they are being forced to spend their PERSONAL resources on welders. Why can't people let players play the freaking game without trying to pick their pockets? We already have mines which are a marine pres-sink, now you want them spending more pres on welders? No. Sorry but I disagree.
First, because when we had the commander doing that (as he did in NS1) it made the job needlessly complex. Second, because it's an asymmetric game.
Remember, with aliens they have their armory 'built-in'. If they want to grab an 'bro-fist EXO' they can just click evolve to fade. They don't need to click on a hive or ask the commander for it. They also don't need the commander to 'unlock' the fade with research. The alien player is free to do whatever he wants with his personal resources, and he can choose any lifeform he wants if he can afford it.
The marines have to research EVERYTHING. Even welders (in the main game) aren't researched despite how cheap and quickly they can be. When a shotgun is able to be purchased, the commander has PAID to have that tech researched. Why shouldn't a marine be able to buy it freely?
Why shouldn't a marine be able to heal health and armor like any opponent on the other team? You can't make one team pay for it and not another. It just does not work.
Where else would you have people buy guns? Would you rather they nanodrop so that a marine could buy it anywhere on the map? The armory is the hub of the marine game. That's what should make it such a big target.
It doesn't matter if marines have TWENTY ways to restore armor if they all cost personal res. You don't balance a game with one team getting free and easy heals and the other having to pay for them.
Sorry, but you are inaccurate.
MACs can weld, yes. But MACs also build structures and their EMP charge can drain enemy energy. Perhaps you've never used that function.
Nevertheless, the reason you don't usually see MACs in the early game is since they cost RESOURCES. Maybe you think that the marines are swimming in res, I can assure you, they are not. A single MAC costs 15 res when you add in the cost of the structure. For what? Something that is easy to kill and moves slowly unless you pay MORE res to buy an upgrade?
MACs have a narrow role, and repairing marine armor was never part of that design.
Sorry Charlie, but you have debunked nothing. Speaking of Charlie, I posted a quote from him on why armor is so important to game balance. That, my dear friend, is the primary reason why they couldn't implement this change.
Let's not get into BS here. When the gorge had terrible hit registration, you didn't see the devs give it extra health or armor now did you? You don't base gameplay features around balance.
This is precisely why they released a HUGE alien patch when aliens were winning 60% of games. The devs said that balance is *INDEPENDENT* of features. So sorry, the BS about hit reg being the reason it was yanked is just that BS. How many dev quotes do you want that explicitly state that features and balance are two different things? How many quotes will it take?
The developers will NEVER alter how they develop features because of existing balance. If they did then they would never get anything done since the game is never balanced.
Because it is CONTRIVED. You're not giving additional worth to anything, you're needlessly sucking res from the marine p-res pool, and destroying any semblance of balance.
Like I said, never in all the NS2 games have I played did I *EVER* seen the marines lose so badly because of DEATHS. Marines had 2 comm chairs, 3 IPs, observatories at each, advanced armory, proto lab was built etc. Yet the marines lost since they were all easily killed because of hit and run attacks ON THEIR BASES that they could not heal up from. While fades and lerks LOLed their way off to a nearby crag, marines would heal up. But with only 100 health they are only a two-hit kill. They dropped so fast that the game was OVER.
Aliens never killed a single freaking structure and they won the game.
You want me to back that? Sorry, I respectfully decline.
Like I said above, if welders were free I could support this change since it has not increased marine expenses. However, I have yet to see anyone provide justification on why marines should have personal res sucked out of their p-res pool just to heal up, when aliens won't have to do the same thing. It's a fundamental imbalance.
Charlie has stated that the game is balanced around ARMOR. Not health but ARMOR. It's armor that allows the marine's LMG to do one kind of damage to an Onos while the EXO minigun does another. You can never balance the game with health alone since you can never balance any two matchups. Armor is what allows two different units to do two different kinds of damage to the same opponent.
Anything that impacts this will upset game balance on a fundamental level.
That's the point.