End Game Mechanics
Saint_Thoth
Join Date: 2003-05-27 Member: 16767Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2003-05-27 Member: 16767Members, Constellation
Okay, I've just seen too much of this, so as a developer and someone who's probably logged well over a thousand hours in NS1, I'm going to do the rebalance manifesto that's no doubt been done a thousand times before.
Regail me with how many times you've seen this:
• Aliens have 80% resource control for 90% of the game.
• Aliens have three hives, maximum biomass, and full upgrades.
• Aliens lose.
And don't get me wrong, I love epic turtles, but I have to sleep, and I just can't bring myself to leave epic turtles... In the past two weeks, I have seen seven (7) games, where an epic marine turtle has lasted two hours, ending in terminal server crash (for some reason the server always dies around the 2 hour mark, and fails to restart.) In at least half of those games, the turtles began before the marines even had exo's. You can't help but laugh at how broken that is when the aliens can pull no such thing. (And the fact that I've spent 14 hours maintaining or failing to break marine turtles since 250.)
That all being said...
When the aliens have three hives and full upgrades, and the marines are down to one com chair, the marines should lose in short order, no if ands or buts. The aliens should have no trouble overrunning and cracking the base when the marines have failed this badly.
Suggestions:
• Exo's with anything but railguns should require 2 command chairs.
- Exo's with railguns are good in the hands of an elite, but they don't stop upgraded Onos - and you shouldn't be able to stop an upgraded Onos with one command chair.
• Grenade Launchers should require 2 command chairs. (Or be much weaker with only 1)
- Grenade launcher spam is the #1 cause of epic turtles.
• The robotics factory needs a rim around its base so Gorges can jump over it, and/or have its size considerably reduced, and/or its cost raised by 5-10 res, and/or require two command chairs.
• If *either* side has +70% res control, the res rate needs to slowly ramp up to the degree where they have effectively limitless res within 10 minutes, and can break the opposing team in short order.
No end game mechanic should ever be nerfed, or said end game mechanic will not end the game. Similarly, end game mechanics should not appear before the end game has been reached.
• Vortex needs to last at least twice as long to give it more than entertainment value.
• Stomp could use a boost.
• Xenocide could use a boost. (Remember odds are, in a good game, this is vs. Armor 3)
• Biomass should count extra on higher life forms beyond level 6.
• And with the Exo requirements above, said Exo's will be an end game mechanic, instead of a balance breaking epic come back that only one side can pull.
And something we learned in NS1 but apparently forgot:
• Phantom (Cloaking) needs to provide 100% invisibility when standing still at level 3. Anyone who's played this game more than a week has setup their graphics settings to where Phantom is useless, save for the silence effect. The current "slightly/plainly" visible effect should only apply when crawling. The time you waste sitting still and waiting is penalty enough.
Another thing we learned in NS1, and is probably key to this whole problem, and has also no doubt been said over and over again, yet ignored: BALANCE TESTS ARE ONLY PERFORMED BY ELITE PLAYERS. What balances well for elites, does not necessarily translate well for casuals, and the majority of your client population, at the moment, are casuals... (And a great many of us will never enter the ranks of the elite, regardless of hours played.)
I'm sure 250 is perfectly balanced for elites, because it was tested by them, and thus balanced for them. What we did in NS1, to compensate for this discrepancy, is introduce tournament mode, which changed the balance structure slightly. Rookie Friendly flagged servers should be balanced with casuals in mind (stronger aliens), and regular servers should favor the elite (nerfed aliens).
...And yes, much like in NS1, one elite Fade can carry the whole team to victory - but that, as in NS1, is the result of the Fade just being too damn hard to hit, and again, only applies to elite games (or Rookie games being trolled by elite players).
Also, I strongly suggest setting up a central statistic tracker that covers all servers. I saw eight consecutive alien losses on the Rookie servers (Ibis specifically) the day before 250 came out, and couldn't believe what I saw the next day.
And that all being said...
This is a wonderful adaptation and continuation of the original game. It's beautifully rendered, and just fantastic in so many ways I can't hardly begin to describe. I've put off migrating from NS1 to NS2 for the longest time, because I knew I'd just get addicted all over again. So don't take this criticism harshly. This is just yet another beg thread from the casual pool*. Don't forget us!
* (Seems no matter how many hours I log in one of these games, my actual skill set never advances beyond moderate - probably cuz I r old.)
Regail me with how many times you've seen this:
• Aliens have 80% resource control for 90% of the game.
• Aliens have three hives, maximum biomass, and full upgrades.
• Aliens lose.
And don't get me wrong, I love epic turtles, but I have to sleep, and I just can't bring myself to leave epic turtles... In the past two weeks, I have seen seven (7) games, where an epic marine turtle has lasted two hours, ending in terminal server crash (for some reason the server always dies around the 2 hour mark, and fails to restart.) In at least half of those games, the turtles began before the marines even had exo's. You can't help but laugh at how broken that is when the aliens can pull no such thing. (And the fact that I've spent 14 hours maintaining or failing to break marine turtles since 250.)
That all being said...
When the aliens have three hives and full upgrades, and the marines are down to one com chair, the marines should lose in short order, no if ands or buts. The aliens should have no trouble overrunning and cracking the base when the marines have failed this badly.
Suggestions:
• Exo's with anything but railguns should require 2 command chairs.
- Exo's with railguns are good in the hands of an elite, but they don't stop upgraded Onos - and you shouldn't be able to stop an upgraded Onos with one command chair.
• Grenade Launchers should require 2 command chairs. (Or be much weaker with only 1)
- Grenade launcher spam is the #1 cause of epic turtles.
• The robotics factory needs a rim around its base so Gorges can jump over it, and/or have its size considerably reduced, and/or its cost raised by 5-10 res, and/or require two command chairs.
• If *either* side has +70% res control, the res rate needs to slowly ramp up to the degree where they have effectively limitless res within 10 minutes, and can break the opposing team in short order.
No end game mechanic should ever be nerfed, or said end game mechanic will not end the game. Similarly, end game mechanics should not appear before the end game has been reached.
• Vortex needs to last at least twice as long to give it more than entertainment value.
• Stomp could use a boost.
• Xenocide could use a boost. (Remember odds are, in a good game, this is vs. Armor 3)
• Biomass should count extra on higher life forms beyond level 6.
• And with the Exo requirements above, said Exo's will be an end game mechanic, instead of a balance breaking epic come back that only one side can pull.
And something we learned in NS1 but apparently forgot:
• Phantom (Cloaking) needs to provide 100% invisibility when standing still at level 3. Anyone who's played this game more than a week has setup their graphics settings to where Phantom is useless, save for the silence effect. The current "slightly/plainly" visible effect should only apply when crawling. The time you waste sitting still and waiting is penalty enough.
Another thing we learned in NS1, and is probably key to this whole problem, and has also no doubt been said over and over again, yet ignored: BALANCE TESTS ARE ONLY PERFORMED BY ELITE PLAYERS. What balances well for elites, does not necessarily translate well for casuals, and the majority of your client population, at the moment, are casuals... (And a great many of us will never enter the ranks of the elite, regardless of hours played.)
I'm sure 250 is perfectly balanced for elites, because it was tested by them, and thus balanced for them. What we did in NS1, to compensate for this discrepancy, is introduce tournament mode, which changed the balance structure slightly. Rookie Friendly flagged servers should be balanced with casuals in mind (stronger aliens), and regular servers should favor the elite (nerfed aliens).
...And yes, much like in NS1, one elite Fade can carry the whole team to victory - but that, as in NS1, is the result of the Fade just being too damn hard to hit, and again, only applies to elite games (or Rookie games being trolled by elite players).
Also, I strongly suggest setting up a central statistic tracker that covers all servers. I saw eight consecutive alien losses on the Rookie servers (Ibis specifically) the day before 250 came out, and couldn't believe what I saw the next day.
And that all being said...
This is a wonderful adaptation and continuation of the original game. It's beautifully rendered, and just fantastic in so many ways I can't hardly begin to describe. I've put off migrating from NS1 to NS2 for the longest time, because I knew I'd just get addicted all over again. So don't take this criticism harshly. This is just yet another beg thread from the casual pool*. Don't forget us!
* (Seems no matter how many hours I log in one of these games, my actual skill set never advances beyond moderate - probably cuz I r old.)
Comments
Yeh
It's a combination of two problems. First that aliens tech is heavily tied to tech points while marines can get nearly everything one 1 tech point. Secondly that end game marine tech is substantially better than alien end game tech.
Not sure I agree with all your fixes but I agree with your assessment of the issue.
Agree with you both. Specifically, I am a casual gamer. @Saint_thoth, I know exactly what you mean about putting in hours, but not improving (I is old 2 :-)). Quiet a few games now, when I comm Aliens, we dominated all game, and marines were on 2 res and 1 cc, and after 30 more minutes, exo/ARC/MAC death ball roll out and stomp us (worse if they held 2 cc for any length of time), they got dualies.
Seems like 250 forced Aliens to play more tightly as a team (its a good thing, but its a bit too much team work to ask in a pub). Marines could never really rambo or they die horribly. But it seems now the more advance lifeforms of Aliens can't rambo either (that they are loners were the whole point I thought).
tl;dr: agreed with your assessment of problem, and many suggestions (here and on the General Forum) about how to best balance this.
I had an epic game as a Marine the other day on Docking. Aliens had Departures and Generator, we were getting slammed, another 5 minutes and we would have lost. So I say to the team, "I see a way to win, everyone who can buy a dual buy one, go straight for Departures and then Gen" So we get like 3-4 duals, and a railgun, and rest jp sg welders. We destroy Departures no trouble at all, while the Aliens are busy with Locker while the com recycled. We then take down Gen in minutes, and then we realized Aliens dropped Locker, so we continue on through there, and then the Aliens ninja'd a hive in departures again, so we go kill that and end up winning. That doesn't seem fair does it?
Projectile based end game abilities would end the game more naturally. Say projectile spore as 3rd hive with xenocide skulks would so much end the game. Or you could add vortex shields back.
Basically the 3rd hive abilities should be turtle breaking abilities not defensive.
However, the main cause of the marine "unbreakable" turtle is the high player count on some of the servers. The current maps are only balanced for 12 to 16 players, and marines gain more advantage in numbers.
I think what hurts the most is that if you gave the aliens 2-3 Grenade launchers, this would be no problem. GLs are so fucking amazing for taking out structures, but if that wasnt enough, Marines also have Flamethrowers and dualie exos. (edit: oops, forgot about arcs)
The best aliens have is bile bomb, which requires the gorge to more or less expose themselves the extremely powerful lategame marine tech (you cant even hide behind an onos because the bile bomb doesnt go through allies). At that point, i dont even care about losing a Gorge. Its the time investment. If i stop biling for more than a few seconds, the structure is already at full health again. Onos are good for actually dealing damage, but youre lucky if the onos can even get a kill after trudging through a hallway full of GL spam and dual minigun fire.
Simply put, aliens need an idiot-friendly counter to bunched up players/structures that costs lots of res so that aliens can actually fucking end the game.
My suggestion was that the alien side could unlock some kind of turtle breaking ability when (and only when) they have mature hives at every tech point bar the marines single last point.
What that ability should be is open to suggestion. I'd suggest a 3x carapace boost. Maybe long lasting enzyme?
Problem solved
Imo the whip ability should come back to bounce back grenades and for flamers maybe a new ability for a shade or drifter or something to make rooms more 'humid' wich decreases the flamers effectiveness so 2 players cant melt an entire base in 1 minute
also onos needs to get a boost either be faster or get more armor it is a pretty useless lifeform as it is now, and not every game has a dedicated lerk to umbra the shit out of everything especially now when they die even faster.
And this is a GOOD thing. The only thing that should separate "elite" players from "casuals" is effectively aim and individual skill.
The META game and STRATEGY and COUNTER STRATEGIES are there regardless of who is playing!!! It's just "elite" players do the counter strategies and "casual" players often go for the frags and engagements and then people complain when they can't 1v1 marines with 3-3 EXOs and JP SG / GL/ FT in 10 minutes because no one bit res nodes and aliens couldn't tech up. Often it's "omg 6 marines in ore processing killing the harvester, defend!!" when you could just base rush and win or force a beacon and kill all peripheral resource nodes.
Instead we have marine turtles fortified with vitamin exo to further improve the chances of a marine comeback. I honestly don't see the logic behind it (quite frankly I think it's pretty retarded), but eh guess that's why I'm not a dev?
I have seen that so many times !! I bought the game 1 week ago and started playing on B250 and there is definitely a problem about marines turtling. Last time it happened; we build 4 IP, the game lasted 1H30 and we won as marines but for everyone, even us, it didn't seem fair at all.
Aliens definitely needs a buff against that on end-game.
And just another thing from a rookie point of view : marines need some weapons to have fun in early game, a shotgun costs 20 res, it's really too much for a basic weapon like this! ==> So what happens is this : marines stick to rifle 90% of time until 'end games' comes then bam! suddenly exos/jetpack gets out and you can have some fun weapons but you waste your res on it 2/3 times and it's over. I think this mechanic is not good, it need to be more like a classic fps with more fluidity in the weapons evolution, now it's too much like you have nothing or you have everything, there is no medium stuffs ! Maybe the com should be the one who provide weapons to marines, could be a cool mechanic.
Flamethrowers are going to get their damage tweaked. Meanwhile, there are counters to them. Lerks can snipe marines with flamethrowers from long range with spikes. Skulks and Fades with proper timing can shred any light armoured marines before they can react.
I love placing Whips to the side of doors and gorge tunnels to slap those marines that try to be brave. :P
For the Onos, you'd want to use the Charge movement (shift key) more often. Better watch your energy level while doing it though.
4 alien players go Onos and join to become a Mega-Onos", with 4x armor and 4x damage attack and 4x attack speed.
The only caveat: Each of the 4 players only controls one of the 4 legs. So, you have to move all in the same direction or he goes nowhere.
Look, if you 're having trouble with last stands. Get 3-4 onos, 1-2 lerks and everyone else gorge, get some drifters, spam enzyme but make sure it's a coordinated group or yeah you will have 2h last stands. Even if you don't kill the marines, you do significant damage to their base and chances are, you will kill most of the buildings. Just keep repeating pushes with half your team gorge. You will eventually do too much damage and marines have to GG.
I would like to see more HP on the onos though, it's just so sad seeing them at 600+hp lower and stomp being nearly useless.
The problem is that it's hard for bad alien teams to break a turtle but easy for bad alien teams to keep the marines bottled up, while at the same time it's easy for bad marines to set up a turtle and hard for bad marines to break OUT of their containment. This means that an even match between pub players will, if the aliens are winning, end up in a 2-hour turtle followed by a server crash.
The pub players just aren't good enough to save themselves from this fate.
That's a problem. And the solution is not for them to get better, because there will always be bad players. They deserve to have a good game too.
Can we make it easier for a poorly-coordinated alien team to eventually break in? Or for a poorly-coordinated marine team to break out? Or both?
I'm sorry but this is not the be all and end all of this. I had a game yesterday (9v9) where we had 4 onos, 3 gorges, a lerk and a fade all attack the final marine base together with enzyme. We did this for over 30 minutes before we finally broke through enough to win. Between A3/W3, GLs, FTs, exos, macs, arcs, armory walls and marines welding it's a bloody tough nut to crack!
The madness is that in the reverse situation the marines wouldn't even need that much teamwork, a couple of duel exos and macs could of easily brought down the entire alien team on one hive. Hell one JP/FT could probably do it with some luck.
Alien late game tech sucks. It really really sucks compared to marine late game tech. Yes coordination helps lessen the impact of it's suckyness but the problem is that late game alien tech sucks.
Except aim and skill affect the viability of certain strategies and tactics.
Similarly, the Jetpack+Shotty rush, which maybe viable in a more elite game, inevitably fails miserably in a casual game.
But even in an elite game, we seem to all be able to agree:
- The final alien upgrade line needs to be more strongly dedicated to base cracking.
- Some of the marine upgrades, that are so good for base cracking or sustaining, need to be moved up and not to be so easily available when the marines are so deep in the hole.
Making the Flame Thrower and Grenade Launcher dependant on Arms Labs upgrades again would help some. Particularly if they were fairly weak at weapons 0, and gained more than the standard 10%/weapons level upgrade boost. Wouldn't resolve anything by itself, especially late game, but it would help make casual games more viable short term.
Though I have had a few moment when I said, dang I wish I had emp there