the entire idea of an overhead commander is flawed and nothing more than a gimmick
Wait what? I will agree the idea of an overhead alien commander is flawed, it simply doesn't work. But for marines? You must be joking. The marine commander aspect is one of the core elements of what ultimately made NS 1 great and enabled this successor. Also, the marine commander has quite a bit of skill ceiling and strategic depth to it. (There's definitely room for improvement, but it's by no means inherently flawed, just need more viable marine tech paths and build orders)
the entire idea of an overhead commander is flawed and nothing more than a gimmick
Wait what? I will agree the idea of an overhead alien commander is flawed, it simply doesn't work. But for marines? You must be joking. The marine commander aspect is one of the core elements of what ultimately made NS 1 great and enabled this successor. Also, the marine commander has quite a bit of skill ceiling and strategic depth to it. (There's definitely room for improvement, but it's by no means inherently flawed, just need more viable marine tech paths and build orders)
the skill ceiling for marine command is very, very low. Anybody with a bit of an RTS background will hit it almost immediately.
Marine commanding has the problem of tying an entire team's success too much to one player while offering almost nothing positive to the gameplay experience as a whole. A bad comm can ruin a game for a team, but most good comms play almost identically. As I stated before, you don't need to have someone literally playing an rts to have base building/resource collecting elements in the game. It is really the worst kind of mechanic, with a high skill floor (hard for new players to pick up) and a low skill ceiling (easy for skilled players to master). It's just a gimmick and not necessary for the game at all.
Wow just started skimming this thread. In between IAMKING's talk of his "mechanically superior play" and a supposed NS1 player thinking catalyst packs dropped from a commander is a novel idea, I have been missing out on the lulz. Will have to come back frequently for my daily dose of laughter. Keep up the good work guys!
the entire idea of an overhead commander is flawed and nothing more than a gimmick
Wait what? I will agree the idea of an overhead alien commander is flawed, it simply doesn't work. But for marines? You must be joking. The marine commander aspect is one of the core elements of what ultimately made NS 1 great and enabled this successor. Also, the marine commander has quite a bit of skill ceiling and strategic depth to it. (There's definitely room for improvement, but it's by no means inherently flawed, just need more viable marine tech paths and build orders)
the skill ceiling for marine command is very, very low. Anybody with a bit of an RTS background will hit it almost immediately.
Marine commanding has the problem of tying an entire team's success too much to one player while offering almost nothing positive to the gameplay experience as a whole. A bad comm can ruin a game for a team, but most good comms play almost identically. As I stated before, you don't need to have someone literally playing an rts to have base building/resource collecting elements in the game. It is really the worst kind of mechanic, with a high skill floor (hard for new players to pick up) and a low skill ceiling (easy for skilled players to master). It's just a gimmick and not necessary for the game at all.
I don't agree that it's a gimmick. It's actually a fantastic part of the game.
A lot of Marine Commanders aren't at the top of the skill ceiling with micro/macro. (referring to competitive commanders, public even more so) It's definitely a pretty low ceiling compared to most RTS games but from the skill pool in this game - very few have reached it.
Besides that, there's a lot of other things besides basic structure placement, resource management and micro that you can do. Calling, map awareness, and positioning being key elements.
I don't think I've come across more than 3-4 Commanders in the current skill pool that do all of those things effectively.
It's not so much a role for those with great APM/micro/macro (although I feel it's a requirement to have a decent level or you will not medpack effectively, spend res appropriately or have good map awareness) - it's more the calling and positioning/tactics that makes some commanders shine over others. Constantly planning and reading your opponents positioning and attacks and making calls based on that information is an absolute necessity. Something a surprising number fail at doing.
I'm going to have to disagree. I personally know at least 3 people I play with that are perfectly capable of playing comm at the top competitive level with almost no practice at it. There are of course a lot of other design problems with it besides the problems it has with scaling with effectiveness. It's just a clunky, boring, simple rts that really doesn't add any depth to the game.
the entire idea of an overhead commander is flawed and nothing more than a gimmick
Wait what? I will agree the idea of an overhead alien commander is flawed, it simply doesn't work. But for marines? You must be joking. The marine commander aspect is one of the core elements of what ultimately made NS 1 great and enabled this successor. Also, the marine commander has quite a bit of skill ceiling and strategic depth to it. (There's definitely room for improvement, but it's by no means inherently flawed, just need more viable marine tech paths and build orders)
the skill ceiling for marine command is very, very low. Anybody with a bit of an RTS background will hit it almost immediately.
Marine commanding has the problem of tying an entire team's success too much to one player while offering almost nothing positive to the gameplay experience as a whole. A bad comm can ruin a game for a team, but most good comms play almost identically. As I stated before, you don't need to have someone literally playing an rts to have base building/resource collecting elements in the game. It is really the worst kind of mechanic, with a high skill floor (hard for new players to pick up) and a low skill ceiling (easy for skilled players to master). It's just a gimmick and not necessary for the game at all.
I don't agree that it's a gimmick. It's actually a fantastic part of the game.
A lot of Marine Commanders aren't at the top of the skill ceiling with micro/macro. (referring to competitive commanders, public even more so) It's definitely a pretty low ceiling compared to most RTS games but from the skill pool in this game - very few have reached it.
Besides that, there's a lot of other things besides basic structure placement, resource management and micro that you can do. Calling, map awareness, and positioning being key elements.
I don't think I've come across more than 3-4 Commanders in the current skill pool that do all of those things effectively.
It's not so much a role for those with great APM/micro/macro (although I feel it's a requirement to have a decent level or you will not medpack effectively, spend res appropriately or have good map awareness) - it's more the calling and positioning/tactics that makes some commanders shine over others. Constantly planning and reading your opponents positioning and attacks and making calls based on that information is an absolute necessity. Something a surprising number fail at doing.
Just because there are a ton of people who apparently would get smashed by bronze level SC2 players who try to comm, doesn't actually mean there's much skill in comming.
The point that IAMKING is driving at, is that comming is more or less a binary function. Either the commander is competent, or he isn't. There's no room to excel or go above and beyond, because the commander play just isn't that deep. More than that, when the competent commander checkbox isn't filled, the rest of your team gets trolled and treated to a miserable game experience. Having a gameplay mechanic where your team randomly gets trolled by someone with sub-bronze APM isn't compelling in the least.
I realize some people might have a vested stake in claiming the commander position is more needed than it really is (because really, no one top level at the game actually wants to do something like be full-time comm in a comp scenario), but lets face facts: it's an awful mechanic.
No point arguing about a feature that will not change, and realistically its doing nothing to contribute to the discussion about the balance mod and its set of changes.
some of you people have no idea what strategy is...
the skill is choosing how to spend resources, how to partition army, how to manage risk and reward, and how to deal with uncertainty
like many RTS games, the decision-making will only matter when the teams are fair, but that's how games are designed to be played...
NS2 does have problem with depth and the fact that teams are almost never fair, but in terms of the game's design, the skill is definitely there and it has nothing to do with APM or silly Starcraft analogies
The last pages of this thread have a disturbing amount of negativity attached to them. Some people should really grab a hold or put their nonconstructive whining about what they dislike about key features of NS2 somewhere else. Just saying "I think feature X is teh schite" is not helping anyone in the process of improving this mod, hence why you are called a troll: a non-helpful post with just the intention of causing a reaction from other people.
Thread has started to fail when pub randoms became aware of balance mod being integrated into the game. Haven't seen many valid points raised in about 5 pages now
Guessing there is a private balance mod thread for selected testers?
I tried the balance mod a few times and I'm left with a very positive impression. I like every change except the fade movement. For me, It feels awkward and after trying it, I felt like I had a chain that holds me back. Could somepony tell me how you fast travel around the map with it? I tried a few times to jump then dash or something like that but was unable to achieve great speeds.
On the other hand, the skulk is like a pegasus flying around the map, which I love a lot. Its b-hopping mechanic feels really intuitive unlike the fade one. Or maybe I'm just missing something obvious about the fade's movement...
Thread has started to fail when pub randoms became aware of balance mod being integrated into the game. Haven't seen many valid points raised in about 5 pages now
Guessing there is a private balance mod thread for selected testers?
The fade movement is a legitimate concern. Are there videos that showcase fade in combat now rather than just traveling around a map by himself?
I like every change except the fade movement. For me, It feels awkward and after trying it, I felt like I had a chain that holds me back. Could somepony tell me how you fast travel around the map with it? I tried a few times to jump then dash or something like that but was unable to achieve great speeds.
On the other hand, the skulk is like a pegasus flying around the map, which I love a lot. Its b-hopping mechanics feels really intuitive unlike the fade one. Or maybe I'm just missing something obvious about the fade's movement...
The Fade bhop is exactly the same, except you use blink instead of walljumps to gain momentum. Protip: only use shadowstep in combat, as it drops you like a brick.
The BT Fade has such a low skill ceiling now. Can we get vanilla Shadowstep and double jump back? Fades are just bad right now.
Lol... I can't even fade on live anymore as it feels so limited. BT fade is more predictable and easier to track, which makes playing fade require more game smarts. Probably why alot of people are struggling
The BT Fade has such a low skill ceiling now. Can we get vanilla Shadowstep and double jump back? Fades are just bad right now.
Lol... I can't even fade on live anymore as it feels so limited. BT fade is more predictable and easier to track, which makes playing fade require more game smarts. Probably why alot of people are struggling
I feel the exact opposite. BT Fade feels really limited to me, and it is so easy to hit the skill cap. Everything about the BT Fade is one dimensional. There is no room for creativity. You can only play the BT Fade one way and that just isn't fun for me.
I too dislike the BT Fade... I see nothing wrong with the Fade in vanilla, one of my favorite movement systems from any game. I like most of the changes but that honestly is a dealbreaker for me.
No point arguing about a feature that will not change, and realistically its doing nothing to contribute to the discussion about the balance mod and its set of changes.
I've learned that long ago, many have during their development phase. But that's actually another big problem. We're dealing with very stubborn developers here. They boxed themselves into these corners by refusing to accept changes that changes their version of the gameplay that never worked, and still doesn't. (no matter how many times they changed things.) what I like to see from the developers say one of these days, "hey this idea just doesn't work, it sounds great but it just doesn't work in-game. Maybe we should remove it." But all I hear, "this idea doesn't work, but lets work around the problem, I'm sure we can make it work."
that's basically the problem here. we all know many of the key features of the game don't work well, we can't change them so the next best thing? we must work around the problem. But what will that fix? the underlining issue will still be there.
some key features for example
1.infestation
2.marines power grid
3.movement
4.alien commander
5.gorge
The list can go on and on, so many "key features" will not change no matter what. They sounded great on paper, I'm sure of it but never worked well in-game but are forced to stay here, patched around it and forcing it to work no matter what. The fact that some key features being down right refused to be removed or altered completely differently, not much will change with the game.
Sad to see the Biomass Tech Tree gone. It was a nice addition to have multiple ways to acquire tech on the alien side, depending on the situation. It also allowed to get some strong upgrades on less Hives than in vanilla while still delaying them a bit from the moment the Hive finished growing.
I hope Xenocide is still on 2 Hives and simply delayed until you get Leap.
The Drifter should get it's passive abilities back, though. If you really want to keep a default invisibility, we could still come up with a different passive ability for it.
It could stay stay 70% cloaked while moving or using it's cloud abilities in order to be harder to spot.
Or be completely silent. (Also while constructing stuff, which is currently quite a giveaway for them)
Or it could gain Aura-like perception and spot living targets (not marine structures) through walls within a certain range.
I don't think there's much reason for Biomass to exist if it's just for HP. The difference isn't big enough to justify adding a whole new system to the game when it could just be tied to hive count.
The BT Fade has such a low skill ceiling now. Can we get vanilla Shadowstep and double jump back? Fades are just bad right now.
Lol... I can't even fade on live anymore as it feels so limited. BT fade is more predictable and easier to track, which makes playing fade require more game smarts. Probably why alot of people are struggling
I feel the exact opposite. BT Fade feels really limited to me, and it is so easy to hit the skill cap. Everything about the BT Fade is one dimensional. There is no room for creativity. You can only play the BT Fade one way and that just isn't fun for me.
Hmm...
Lets see
Live has:
X-axis only shadow step
Double jump
Blink
So basically we have removed double jump for the inclusion of bhop and being able to shadowstep up/down. I really don't see how its one dimensional, you have gained more ways to attack/move.... And lost the ability to tap space again while in the air.... Additionally fade BT is more predictable in its movement, which is absolutely needed cause fading is 2easy... Playing fade in NS1 comp was only reserved for players with great movement, great swipe aim and most important great game smarts.
Comments
Marine commanding has the problem of tying an entire team's success too much to one player while offering almost nothing positive to the gameplay experience as a whole. A bad comm can ruin a game for a team, but most good comms play almost identically. As I stated before, you don't need to have someone literally playing an rts to have base building/resource collecting elements in the game. It is really the worst kind of mechanic, with a high skill floor (hard for new players to pick up) and a low skill ceiling (easy for skilled players to master). It's just a gimmick and not necessary for the game at all.
Don't even bother.
How can this help balancing the game?
BT isnt made for competitive players only. The result is going to be released for everyone.
It seem some "uber-pros" forget this fact.
I don't agree that it's a gimmick. It's actually a fantastic part of the game.
A lot of Marine Commanders aren't at the top of the skill ceiling with micro/macro. (referring to competitive commanders, public even more so) It's definitely a pretty low ceiling compared to most RTS games but from the skill pool in this game - very few have reached it.
Besides that, there's a lot of other things besides basic structure placement, resource management and micro that you can do. Calling, map awareness, and positioning being key elements.
I don't think I've come across more than 3-4 Commanders in the current skill pool that do all of those things effectively.
It's not so much a role for those with great APM/micro/macro (although I feel it's a requirement to have a decent level or you will not medpack effectively, spend res appropriately or have good map awareness) - it's more the calling and positioning/tactics that makes some commanders shine over others. Constantly planning and reading your opponents positioning and attacks and making calls based on that information is an absolute necessity. Something a surprising number fail at doing.
Just because there are a ton of people who apparently would get smashed by bronze level SC2 players who try to comm, doesn't actually mean there's much skill in comming.
The point that IAMKING is driving at, is that comming is more or less a binary function. Either the commander is competent, or he isn't. There's no room to excel or go above and beyond, because the commander play just isn't that deep. More than that, when the competent commander checkbox isn't filled, the rest of your team gets trolled and treated to a miserable game experience. Having a gameplay mechanic where your team randomly gets trolled by someone with sub-bronze APM isn't compelling in the least.
I realize some people might have a vested stake in claiming the commander position is more needed than it really is (because really, no one top level at the game actually wants to do something like be full-time comm in a comp scenario), but lets face facts: it's an awful mechanic.
the skill is choosing how to spend resources, how to partition army, how to manage risk and reward, and how to deal with uncertainty
like many RTS games, the decision-making will only matter when the teams are fair, but that's how games are designed to be played...
NS2 does have problem with depth and the fact that teams are almost never fair, but in terms of the game's design, the skill is definitely there and it has nothing to do with APM or silly Starcraft analogies
Guessing there is a private balance mod thread for selected testers?
On the other hand, the skulk is like a pegasus flying around the map, which I love a lot. Its b-hopping mechanic feels really intuitive unlike the fade one. Or maybe I'm just missing something obvious about the fade's movement...
Lol... I can't even fade on live anymore as it feels so limited. BT fade is more predictable and easier to track, which makes playing fade require more game smarts. Probably why alot of people are struggling
I feel the exact opposite. BT Fade feels really limited to me, and it is so easy to hit the skill cap. Everything about the BT Fade is one dimensional. There is no room for creativity. You can only play the BT Fade one way and that just isn't fun for me.
I've learned that long ago, many have during their development phase. But that's actually another big problem. We're dealing with very stubborn developers here. They boxed themselves into these corners by refusing to accept changes that changes their version of the gameplay that never worked, and still doesn't. (no matter how many times they changed things.) what I like to see from the developers say one of these days, "hey this idea just doesn't work, it sounds great but it just doesn't work in-game. Maybe we should remove it." But all I hear, "this idea doesn't work, but lets work around the problem, I'm sure we can make it work."
that's basically the problem here. we all know many of the key features of the game don't work well, we can't change them so the next best thing? we must work around the problem. But what will that fix? the underlining issue will still be there.
some key features for example
1.infestation
2.marines power grid
3.movement
4.alien commander
5.gorge
The list can go on and on, so many "key features" will not change no matter what. They sounded great on paper, I'm sure of it but never worked well in-game but are forced to stay here, patched around it and forcing it to work no matter what. The fact that some key features being down right refused to be removed or altered completely differently, not much will change with the game.
I hope Xenocide is still on 2 Hives and simply delayed until you get Leap.
The Drifter should get it's passive abilities back, though. If you really want to keep a default invisibility, we could still come up with a different passive ability for it.
It could stay stay 70% cloaked while moving or using it's cloud abilities in order to be harder to spot.
Or be completely silent. (Also while constructing stuff, which is currently quite a giveaway for them)
Or it could gain Aura-like perception and spot living targets (not marine structures) through walls within a certain range.
Hmm...
Lets see
Live has:
X-axis only shadow step
Double jump
Blink
BT has:
X/Y-axis shadow step, removed momentum
Blink, momentum
Bhop
So basically we have removed double jump for the inclusion of bhop and being able to shadowstep up/down. I really don't see how its one dimensional, you have gained more ways to attack/move.... And lost the ability to tap space again while in the air.... Additionally fade BT is more predictable in its movement, which is absolutely needed cause fading is 2easy... Playing fade in NS1 comp was only reserved for players with great movement, great swipe aim and most important great game smarts.