Combat Mode Relaunch

1282931333460

Comments

  • NS-SoldierNS-Soldier Join Date: 2013-01-16 Member: 179856Members
    thanks for breaking the mod for the weekend

    1) no onos or dual mini guns
    2) alien gets disconnected from being killed by railgun
  • DarkSeraphDarkSeraph Join Date: 2004-06-07 Member: 29174Members
    edited April 2013
    First priority - fix the bug that railgun kicks people. The good news is that's improving marine win percentage...

    On the subject of balance: removing dual exo and onos is silly. I disagree with ZEROibis - I think it is the mod teams job to balance, as the mod will have different balance than classic play. Each server mod deciding on their own what they think is balanced sounds even more nightmarish.

    How I would approach balance:
    • Last Stand after 25 min - no healing hive or CC. This will result in the more organized or aggressive team to win, which I think is positive reinforcement. This will also balance out win percentage, since aliens are currently favored due to default win.
    • Win Statistics - hopefully ns2stats will work soon and you can pull just the main maps. Balancing without statistics is like throwing darts blindfolded.
    • Balance - This is the time to just test sh!t out and see how it works.

    My personal thoughts on balance issues discussed previously:
    • Hydras - why not kill them if player goes lerk/fade/onos? Except skulk because if gorge dies they will come back as skulk.
    • Ink - I'm not sure if it needs to be removed or just radius reduced, but I think something has to give here.
    • Fade - pro fades are clearly overpowered, but I'm not sure how to nerf them while not hurting noob fades too much. Possibilities involve adrenaline, blink and hp (last resort).
    • Resupply - I think it's OK as is. Sometimes marines get a pack after the first bite, and the 10s for the next is very reasonable. Otherwise is it too good for 1 upgrade point.
  • rantologyrantology Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
    edited April 2013
    DarkSeraph wrote: »
    • Last Stand after 25 min - no healing hive or CC. This will result in the more organized or aggressive team to win, which I think is positive reinforcement. This will also balance out win percentage, since aliens are currently favored due to default win.

    This is actually a really cool idea. +1

  • JibrailJibrail Join Date: 2009-04-16 Member: 67200Members
    edited April 2013
    Thank you all for the huge amount of feedback in just one day! its a great confirmation that we are on the right track as most of the stuff mentioned here are exactly what we were thinking about and discussing internally, also as DarkSeraph mentioned NS2stats isn't working with Combat for a long while so its a pain in the ass to balance stuff even though I try to play and observe alot of games so hopefully we can work with them in the near future.
    I will talk to our coders today and see if they got the time to implement those stuff ( or atleast the ones that can be done quickly without hassle ) and see if we can get a new version out soon.


    On a different note I just wanted to also mention this and get some early feedback, with our coders working on a new codebase that would make it easier to remove, add and tweak stuff and not having a pain in the ass like with the current code, I was suggesting to Greeds yesterday that we switch to a res model instead of XP points ( xp will still be in but will work differently ) so players will buy everything with res, now most upgrades will stay with you throughout the game but if you die you lose your class/weapon and the res you spent wont be refunded.

    This way I think the game will keep moving forward in a much nicer way to name a few pros with this approach

    1.Players caring about their lives and not spam dieing-->revolve and so on

    2.Buildings would cost res so its a big invesment making those stuff easier to balance once they are in

    3.making our jobs easier to balance the game in whole without the ducktape style we are doing now, like if a unit is becoming too much we hardcap it, hardcaps will be removed cause its gonna depend on how much res you ( as a player and a team ) have.

    4.This will give the new Combat a very stratigic feel to it like "do I spend my res on X early on or can we as a group of 4 save up for exos and go for the hive even though its dangerous and there is a big chance that we 4 die and lose all that res.

    I REALLY want to know how you guys/girls feel about this and I hope you like it better than the current version, I should also say that don't expect these stuff anytime soon as our coders are hard at work everyday and still have a long way to go.

    ps. sorry for the wall of text :D
  • SnipoSnipo Join Date: 2004-04-26 Member: 28234Members, Constellation
    I liked combat before you guys broke it.... please make dual mini and onos a mod please. so server OP's can choose to add it or not! thank you for making combat but you have made a very poor choice of judgement here. we like this game don't ruin it!!!
  • SnipoSnipo Join Date: 2004-04-26 Member: 28234Members, Constellation
    and yes when you get killed by the railgun you are disconnected!
  • MCMLXXXIVMCMLXXXIV Join Date: 2010-04-14 Member: 71400Members
    I would love it if people could mod Combat. It's built on a very old mod architecture (not sewlek's new one) so it does tend to misbehave rather a lot. At some point over the weekend I'll also look into whether it's possible to write a .entry file for Combat, so that potentially modders can write mods for it. Our new mod architecture already supports this but the old one might do strange things!

    To fix the railgun disconnects I'm going to just disable railgun exo. I've just published a new version now...
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    Balance is something that should be 100% determined by server operators by giving them the configuration options. This speeds up development because it dramatically increases the total workforce on the project. In addition it allows multiple methods to be tried at the same time.

    The server operators have a more direct communication with the players and invested interest in balance because they need those players to populate their servers. Having server operators test things also avoids problems such as having the game suddenly lose features such as onos and exo for the entire player base.

    People here also talk about balance here in relation to classic game play, I have not seen anyone stating that the mod does not need balance or that it should be balanced around any existing model wither that be the old combat or the current ns2 itself. What we are talking about here is having the people that can do the programing focus on that and leave the configurations to the market of competition of server operators trying to attract players. You forget how the supply line works here the mod is not for players it is for server operators to give to players. The market of the mod developers is the server operator and the market of the server operator is the end player. By allowing the mod developers to focus on the server operator needs and allow the server operators to focus on the player needs you get an over all better experience for the player.

    The above system is also how for example your grocery store works and many of today's common industries and there is a reason for this and it is called efficiency.
  • SecuritySecurity Join Date: 2005-01-07 Member: 33133Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
    edited April 2013
    Jibrail wrote: »
    I was suggesting to Greeds yesterday that we switch to a res model instead of XP points ( xp will still be in but will work differently ) so players will buy everything with res, now most upgrades will stay with you throughout the game but if you die you lose your class/weapon and the res you spent wont be refunded.

    This way I think the game will keep moving forward in a much nicer way to name a few pros with this approach

    1.Players caring about their lives and not spam dieing-->revolve and so on

    2.Buildings would cost res so its a big invesment making those stuff easier to balance once they are in

    I'm not sure if I like those ideas. Wouldn't punishment for death be against the nature of combat?

    I think it would be good to stick as close to the original NS1 Combat + popular plugins (xmenu, combat buildings) as possible.
    While adding new things of course, but not changing core principles, probably.

    (And if not, make everything optional and configureable at least.)


    ZEROibis wrote: »
    Balance is something that should be 100% determined by server operators by giving them the configuration options. This speeds up development because it dramatically increases the total workforce on the project. In addition it allows multiple methods to be tried at the same time.

    The server operators have a more direct communication with the players and invested interest in balance because they need those players to populate their servers. Having server operators test things also avoids problems such as having the game suddenly lose features such as onos and exo for the entire player base.

    People here also talk about balance here in relation to classic game play, I have not seen anyone stating that the mod does not need balance or that it should be balanced around any existing model wither that be the old combat or the current ns2 itself. What we are talking about here is having the people that can do the programing focus on that and leave the configurations to the market of competition of server operators trying to attract players. You forget how the supply line works here the mod is not for players it is for server operators to give to players. The market of the mod developers is the server operator and the market of the server operator is the end player. By allowing the mod developers to focus on the server operator needs and allow the server operators to focus on the player needs you get an over all better experience for the player.

    The above system is also how for example your grocery store works and many of today's common industries and there is a reason for this and it is called efficiency.

    Fully agreed.
  • rantologyrantology Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
    edited April 2013
    Jibrail wrote: »
    a res model instead of XP points ( xp will still be in but will work differently ) so players will buy everything with res, now most upgrades will stay with you throughout the game but if you die you lose your class/weapon and the res you spent wont be refunded.

    Dislike this idea, it kind of deviates from the entire idea of the oldschool combat model. If I wanted consequences for losing a lifeform/engagement, I would play vanilla NS2.


    also having every server op having their own set of balance rules would be rather annoying imo, kind of like how every server had their own version of AMX mod for combat back in NS1. It was horrible and often times the people running them were very bad at judging balance, so not only would it be very confusing, it would also be horrible gameplay.


  • JibrailJibrail Join Date: 2009-04-16 Member: 67200Members
    edited April 2013
    I forgot to mention that with the res model, you get res from kills and preforming other tasks on top of that you get a steady and fairly quick res flow ( without capping res nodes ) that way if you aren't that good you are still guaranteed to be able to evolve/buy weapons multiple times during the round ofc the more skilled you are you earn more res by getting lots of kills.

    Do you guys still think this is a bad approach?


    ps. I think rantology have a point there, we are not against it but it would be weird to look at balance gathered from multiple servers running different setups, anywho we will cross that bridge when we come to it.
  • SecuritySecurity Join Date: 2005-01-07 Member: 33133Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
    edited April 2013
    rantology wrote: »
    also having every server op having their own set of balance rules would be rather annoying imo, kind of like how every server had their own version of AMX mod for combat back in NS1. It was horrible and often times the people running them were very bad at judging balance, so not only would it be very confusing, it would also be horrible gameplay.

    But its their servers, into which they are putting time and expenses, to provide for free. So Admins need control and options on how to run things on their server.
    Thats the whole appeal in hosting a server. Beeing able to change things, customizing and making it unique.

    If you take these options and control away, people are less likely to host servers anymore.

    Besides, if you don't like a server, whats the problem with seeking & favoriting one that first your needs?
    Why should all servers have to be the same? That would be incredibly boring.

    People will always have different tastes and opinions about what they like & think is right. Why not make everyone happy, by providing options and choices?


    rantology wrote: »
    --Hydras - these need to die if the player is not gorge

    Also, when I just tried, they did die after I was not gorge anymore.

  • JimWestJimWest Join Date: 2010-01-03 Member: 69865Members, Reinforced - Silver
    We can't and won't make every value editable via a command for admins.
    Making such a system would take more time then creating the whole combat mod.

    Just some general things like time limit, maybe some upgrades (enable, disable onos, buildings).
  • rantologyrantology Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
    Security wrote: »
    But its their servers, into which they are putting time and expenses, to provide for free. So Admins need control and options on how to run things on their server.
    Thats the whole appeal in hosting a server. Beeing able to change things, customizing and making it unique.

    If you take these options and control away, people are less likely to host servers anymore.


    Ah yes I am by no means trying to tell people how to run their servers. I'm simply saying, having unique sets of balance variable and abilities for combat on every server happened at one point in NS1 to an extent and it resulted in a terrible experience.

  • SecuritySecurity Join Date: 2005-01-07 Member: 33133Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
    edited April 2013
    JimWest wrote: »
    We can't and won't make every value editable via a command for admins.
    Making such a system would take more time then creating the whole combat mod.

    Just some general things like time limit, maybe some upgrades (enable, disable onos, buildings).

    I would like to have options to:

    - Enable/disable/edit the MOTD
    - Enable/disable upgrades, weapons, lifeforms and buildings
    - Change the cost of upgrades
    - Change the limit of weapons and lifeforms allowed per team / number of players
    - Change the limit of buildings allowed per team / number of players


    Thats can't possibly be too much, right?
    I mean, those are very basic options that most of the NS1 Plugins had!

    And just have a look at the DAK Admin Mod config file - its like 1 1/2 pages long. I don't even want that many options for combat!
  • SecuritySecurity Join Date: 2005-01-07 Member: 33133Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
    edited April 2013
    rantology wrote: »
    Ah yes I am by no means trying to tell people how to run their servers. I'm simply saying, having unique sets of balance variable and abilities for combat on every server happened at one point in NS1 to an extent and it resulted in a terrible experience.

    What if there was a change of the default settings of a mod, which you didn't like at all, but there were a few servers that reverted those changes, because the admins were able to do so, thanks to config options?

    That would be a blessing then, wouldn't it? :]
  • DarkSeraphDarkSeraph Join Date: 2004-06-07 Member: 29174Members
    Resource based upgrades: I will admit I'm curious to see how it plays but the appeal of combat since NS1 has been the lack of resources and the renewability of your upgrades. That said I think it would do wonders to balance fade & hydras.

    Again I disagree with ZEROibis. The appeal of running a server is so you can play the maps you want with the mods you want. Every server admin adjusting to their own personal sense of balance sounds atrocious! It's best for the combat mod to keep the game similar among all servers. Now if an admin wants to run xmenu or other mods, that's cool, totally up to them. But every server admin significantly changing how the Combat mod works sounds like a tragedy waiting to happen. I think this is a knee jerk reaction to the onos/dual exo removal, though I could be wrong.
  • GoldenGolden Join Date: 2004-09-01 Member: 31169Members, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, WC 2013 - Silver, NS2 Community Developer
    My feedback:

    - Resupply is too weak. Its faster to run all the way back to the armory than wait for resupply to refill your health. I tend not to get it until after weapons 3/armor 2 sometimes.

    - I really like playing without onos and exos. I feel this was a good change.

    - There needs to be a cooldown on re-evolving to fade, or an increase in the length of time to evolve. As it is right now, you end up with 6-8 fades. If you kill three of them and book it straight to the hive, those 3 fades will be waiting for you. If a cooldown on jetpacks is required to balance this out, then that would be fine.
  • SecuritySecurity Join Date: 2005-01-07 Member: 33133Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
    edited April 2013
    DarkSeraph wrote: »
    That said I think it would do wonders to balance fade & hydras.

    How are hydras in combat even a problem, with weapon upgrades, grenade launchers and flamethrowers so quickly and readily available, compared to standard NS2?
    I never quite understood why people are complaining about them. I find it hard and tiresome to even keep them up as a gorge.
    They also give a good amount of xp to marines, when they are killed.

    I feel that they are only useful to slow down marines in the early game, where kharaa are very vulnerable and at a disadvantage. They become more or less useless once marines get weapon upgrades.

    DarkSeraph wrote: »
    I think this is a knee jerk reaction to the onos/dual exo removal, though I could be wrong.

    I think that you are wrong.
    If there were options available, I would have further limited exos and onos (1 or 2 per team at max, depending on number of players) a long time ago already, thus solving the problem and making drastic changes like a complete removal unnecessary.

    What I dislike, is not having control about stuff happening on my server.
    I like to have options and choices. I don't like having things forced on me.

    That said, I still don't understand what would be so horrible about server admins beeing able to configure and change mods.
    It worked just fine in NS1. People will always have different tastes and opinions about things.
    Why not make everyone happy, by providing options and choices instead of forcing things on them?

    Everyone would only benefit from it.
    And you can't seriously tell me that it would be such a big problem to find a server with a configuration that fits your needs.
    Don't like how a server is configured? Just join one that does! There would be plenty for everyone.
  • Korn09Korn09 Join Date: 2013-03-23 Member: 184285Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    I'm not even sure where to start...whether as a server operator (Team GG) or as a player.

    You've taken a fairly well designed mod with great potential, and bluntly have run it into the ground with this last patch. Who in their right mind would think removing ANY and all heavy armor classes in the game was a good balance decision? Aliens just fade and hydra up and its game over. Period. I can't even bring myself to endure anymore of a game right now to comment on anything else. Going forward? How about the aliens don't automatically win and we actually have a true deathmatch? So what if it runs an hour. That was the fun part of NS1 combat... the epic struggle down to the last wire.

    As an operator, this concept of a workshop bluntly sucks. Forcing mod updates on server operators when its clearly a horrible update is just a poor method of doing this. But that's life I suppose with NS2. The fact that the workshop servers go tits up joining a server and/or between rounds is yet just another reason the mods should initially download to the server, and then players can download them from that individual server. Simple. Now as an operator of this mod, I'm not sure what can be said that hasn't been already conveyed by the player in me. Balance variables would be nice I guess...

    The day someone actually makes combat like NS1 combat maybe with some xmenu fun is the day that everyone is going to be happy. Simple. No need to reinvent the wheel. It worked fine before.
  • SnipoSnipo Join Date: 2004-04-26 Member: 28234Members, Constellation
    Korn09 wrote: »
    The day someone actually makes combat like NS1 combat maybe with some xmenu fun is the day that everyone is going to be happy. Simple. No need to reinvent the wheel. It worked fine before.
    +1
    ns1 combat was awesome! please don't make this mod resource based.....i like deathmatch!
  • Mr_WafflesMr_Waffles Join Date: 2013-04-13 Member: 184781Members
    edited April 2013
    To start off, i'm almost an entirely combat-based player. Every now and again i'll play classic, but for the huge majority of my matches i play combat. With that said, I feel the direction co_ is taking is entirely wrong. Having onos and exos in the games made matches exciting. I don't understand how removing an aspect of a game can "add" to the experience. If you feel like they're overpowered, adjust their cost. Removing a key aspect of each team is detrimental to the game as a whole, and here's why:

    Removal of exos:
    fades are dumb w/o exo firepower. From my experience, marines have a hard time combating fades until L3 shotgun with jp. This means that in order to be able to fight a fade well, a marine must be at least level 9. Level 9 vs level 4, hardly seems balanced.

    Removal of onos:
    with the removal of onos, aliens no longer have have an ability to fight exos for the long-haul (as established above, marines should definitely have exos).

    So, please. Please bring back onos as well as exos. If you feel that they're overpowered, adjust their overall cost in points. I'm entirely sure that I wasn't able to cover all points, but this is what I've personally noticed.

    Tl;dr: removing something from a game never adda to the overall experience.

    **appologies for any grammatical or otherwise errors, posted from my phone
  • SnipoSnipo Join Date: 2004-04-26 Member: 28234Members, Constellation
    I just realized jim west and MCMLXXXIV did the BEST april fools joke EVER! ok guys the jig is up... please put it back the way it was ^^: please?
  • JibrailJibrail Join Date: 2009-04-16 Member: 67200Members
    edited April 2013
    New Combat version 3.42 is out, server OPs update now!


    Changelog:

    exo/ oni hardcap changed from 1/4 to 1/7 ( disabled railgun for now untill we find out why it is causing crashes )
    resupply upgrade now costs 2xp points
    resupply changed from 10sec to 6sec
    reduced exo evolve timer to 3 from 4
    changed hydras death timer from 1min to 30sec
    changed devour time from 10sec to 5sec

    Forgot to mention thanks to Greeds for taking some time this morning and do those changes on such a short notice.
  • MagnetoMagneto Join Date: 2010-12-22 Member: 75856Members
    edited April 2013
    It's good trying to improve balance but im not sure why removing exo/onos was ever considered, sure tweak them as much as you like but don't remove them, it's never a good idea to take features away.

    I agree options are always good but at the same time i wouldn't want vastly different combat settings unless it was appropriate for a particular game mode, subtle tweaks here and there sure but id like fairly predictable game play on servers when the ones i like are all full.

    I think it would now be best just to add those extra features and see how it affects game play, with of course the option whether to enable them, im looking forward to xmenu and buildmenu and hopefully some new game modes eventually like mvm/ava.

    One thing i see complained about every so often is the default alien win, i brought it up before and to many is doesn't make sense and has never been properly explained, it would add a lot more fun if both teams had a chance to win without just having to destroy the com, if we could see team progress with a good visual at the top it would motivate people to play better, the losing side would have to take out the com and the winning one would have to better defend against it, constantly shifting until the end where we could have a last stand, one where com can't be healed and spawn times are increased, would add some fast action and fun.

    GvB5f.jpg
  • meatmachinemeatmachine South England Join Date: 2013-01-06 Member: 177858Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    I don't even think combat needs to be balanced to a tee like the main game- it's a training tool for the higher tech / life forms, and alot of the fun comes from being able to use these weapons without punishment for failure. I love the fact that upgrades that aren't available in vanilla NS2 are ready to go in combat, like ink and devour... Just achieve whatever balance you want by adding more features like this without removing the best ones ;)
  • rantologyrantology Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
    2 points for resupply is too much.
  • SecuritySecurity Join Date: 2005-01-07 Member: 33133Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
    Korn09 wrote: »
    As an operator, this concept of a workshop bluntly sucks. Forcing mod updates on server operators when its clearly a horrible update is just a poor method of doing this. But that's life I suppose with NS2. The fact that the workshop servers go tits up joining a server and/or between rounds is yet just another reason the mods should initially download to the server, and then players can download them from that individual server. Simple. Now as an operator of this mod, I'm not sure what can be said that hasn't been already conveyed by the player in me. Balance variables would be nice I guess...

    Indeed.
  • JibrailJibrail Join Date: 2009-04-16 Member: 67200Members
    edited April 2013
    yea tested that after the patch hit and I think that will be changed back next patch, Rantology I wanted to ask do you know who is the main ns2stats person? we want to contact him/her so we can get it to work with combat.
  • rantologyrantology Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
    Synomi handles the game LUA coding and Zeikko handles all the web stuff. I would get in touch with Synomi if you can, I think he's the person you're looking for. =)
Sign In or Register to comment.