I am intentionally being vague because I don't think most people here actually understand balance in 6v6.
Because most people don't play 6v6. Though by all means keep balancing the entirety of the game for the minority of the playerbase.
Here's a bright idea! Why not just hardcap servers to 12p so the game becomes easier to balance and the devs can actually get accurate data from pub play? Sure a good number of the playerbase will be very annoyed and most likely leave the game permanently, but BALANCE! Adapt or GTFO right?
@Grissi
You're assuming that rewarding player skill is a good thing. It's a valid opinion, but not a universal one.
For the people who play public games, further rewarding the elite players is not helping their enjoyment in any way.
If a good alien can fade a few minutes sooner because of RFK, it is even less enjoyable for the marines.
If a good marine can just repurchase his loadout after you finally manage to kill him after many fail attempts, it is even less enjoyable for the aliens.
It's not about "gameplay facts." The issue is that your premise is not a fact, but an opinion
Even in competitive play, widening the skill gap between teams isn't going to do anyone favors. it's not like the game doesn't reward skill enough already
I'm still waiting for someone to give a real argument about a negative effect gameplay wise for RFK.
They already have.
Please see the previous 3 pages.
Now, would someone actually provide a reason FOR implementing RFK, other than "it makes losing life forms more forgiving" because that can be done a dozen different ways that don't have downsides from rfk.
And every other benefit that's been given as a reason has been thanks to complementary mechanics that'd be introduced - mechanics that are commonly already suggested and don't require RFK to work!
Also, since those who support it keep telling the rest of us that we just don't understand... I'm afraid the burden to provide reason falls on you enlightened ones.
Saying that experience players gain more from it is a useless argument because you can say that about everything.
Its like you're ignoring the fact that the gain /reward is compounding with RFK.. And only for those few top individuals.
And if the dozens of "stacked teams", "skill gap too high ", and "we need ranked servers" threads in the previous months are any indication.. Pubs don't need to have that one player who carries the team to be rewarded anymore than they already are?
@Grissi
You're assuming that rewarding player skill is a good thing. It's a valid opinion, but not a universal one.
For the people who play public games, further rewarding the elite players is not helping their enjoyment in any way.
If a good alien can fade a few minutes sooner because of RFK, it is even less enjoyable for the marines.
If a good marine can just repurchase his loadout after you finally manage to kill him after many fail attempts, it is even less enjoyable for the aliens.
It's not about "gameplay facts." The issue is that your premise is not a fact, but an opinion
Even in competitive play, widening the skill gap between teams isn't going to do anyone favors. it's not like the game doesn't reward skill enough already
But if we think about it a little bit, do public players not gain anything from getting these kills as well? Won't they get more opportunities to go adv lifeforms and use other weapons than lmg? Instead of only focusing on this one aspect where a experienced player will get bit more pres than the other players you can actually see that rfk does not only give that player a boost. It gives everyone in the team a boost.
Its true that I can only give arguments from my experience and knowledge but saying a gameplay mechanic is simply bad just because some players can gain more from it is simply not logical. Like mentioned before you can apply that to every single mechanic to the game, if we would not be allowed to have any reward with skill we could play pong where both players fill the screen so the ball never gets through. Does that mean we should ignore all the other positive and/or negative parts of the mechanic without looking at it from all angles?
After we figure out all the positives and the negatives we can think about how to make the mechanic as effective as possible, would be best if 1pres per kill would be enough but maybe there is a another solution? Might turn out its not as good as it sounds to be, if not then at least we gave it a fair chance. I mean if there is another solution to all the issues mentioned in the document that is better than RFK I'm sure everyone would not hesitate to go for it. At least try to use arguments that are connected to the gameplay, not the skill difference. If there is a skill difference the team that plays better will win, does not matter if there is RFK or not.
I still remember my days when I started playing ns1, even though there were better players on the server I was simply happy to get my extra res to go lifeform again. In the end it was much more fun to play a adv lifeform than staying skulk. Having more chances to do that would definitely be a plus.
I am intentionally being vague because I don't think most people here actually understand balance in 6v6. Case in point about RFK and that final topic - if tres drops are all but removed (or made to require 3 hives), alien balance will shift massively. You could see teams loosing the instant they loose a single fade, just because generally speaking, on 3 rts your looking at 13+ minutes to get your second fade. That puts you easily past the 20 minute mark of the game. This is why RFK could prove useful - aliens that are able to at least hold on by killing marines effectively may be able to get back into the game. The same also holds true for marines all too much - late game when your up against multiple fades and even an onos possibly, if you haven't been careful all game to not lose more then 1 shotgun per person, your quickly backed into a wall were a single mistake can cost you an unrecoverable amount of pres loss - especially if you have jetpacks.
Whats sad to see is people using the same broken arguments as before with RFK - simply because they do not understand what RFK causes, and what is simply a side effect of adding it ontop of a resource system balanced WITHOUT it. Should RFK actually be considered, I would imagine it would accompany both a reduction in starting pres (to maintain similar lifeform timings), and potentially adjustments to the pres income rate per tower. Stop looking at the impacts on a resource system balanced without pres and look at the actual impacts of the change... There are definitely pros and cons to RFK but 99% of the stuff posted here is horribly incorrect.
"99% of the stuff posted here is horrible incorrect but I'm going to be vague and not tell you why because you wouldn't actually understand it anyway."
@Grissi
You're assuming that rewarding player skill is a good thing. It's a valid opinion, but not a universal one.
For the people who play public games, further rewarding the elite players is not helping their enjoyment in any way.
If a good alien can fade a few minutes sooner because of RFK, it is even less enjoyable for the marines.
If a good marine can just repurchase his loadout after you finally manage to kill him after many fail attempts, it is even less enjoyable for the aliens.
It's not about "gameplay facts." The issue is that your premise is not a fact, but an opinion
Even in competitive play, widening the skill gap between teams isn't going to do anyone favors. it's not like the game doesn't reward skill enough already
But if we think about it a little bit, do public players not gain anything from getting these kills as well? Won't they get more opportunities to go adv lifeforms and use other weapons than lmg? Instead of only focusing on this one aspect where a experienced player will get bit more pres than the other players you can actually see that rfk does not only give that player a boost. It gives everyone in the team a boost.
Its true that I can only give arguments from my experience and knowledge but saying a gameplay mechanic is simply bad just because some players can gain more from it is simply not logical. Like mentioned before you can apply that to every single mechanic to the game, if we would not be allowed to have any reward with skill we could play pong where both players fill the screen so the ball never gets through. Does that mean we should ignore all the other positive and/or negative parts of the mechanic without looking at it from all angles?
After we figure out all the positives and the negatives we can think about how to make the mechanic as effective as possible, would be best if 1pres per kill would be enough but maybe there is a another solution? Might turn out its not as good as it sounds to be, if not then at least we gave it a fair chance. I mean if there is another solution to all the issues mentioned in the document that is better than RFK I'm sure everyone would not hesitate to go for it. At least try to use arguments that are connected to the gameplay, not the skill difference. If there is a skill difference the team that plays better will win, does not matter if there is RFK or not.
I still remember my days when I started playing ns1, even though there were better players on the server I was simply happy to get my extra res to go lifeform again. In the end it was much more fun to play a adv lifeform than staying skulk. Having more chances to do that would definitely be a plus.
Couldn't everyone get more opportunities to go adv lifeforms and use other weapons if you simply halved the cost of every lifeform? That doesn't mean that halving the cost of everything is a good idea.
What if players gained health and damage (highlander style) every time they killed an enemy? Wouldn't this reward some players more than others? The fact that it favors better players doesn't mean it is a good idea, either. I think people are not dismissing RFK out of hand; they're dismissing it because it widens an already very large skill-gap. This is easily seen in pubs.
How is exasperating the skill difference not connected to the gameplay? To many people, as evidenced in this thread, a large increase in skill-gap will be detrimental to their gameplay because it will decrease the enjoyment they get out of the game.
Well then by all means continue discussing the downfalls of how RFK was implemented on Voogru as I'm sure thats completely relevant.... The fact that people constantly go back to protecting public play from the evil high skilled players getting RFK is just downright ridiculous, and quite honestly why there is little hope for this game ever becoming what it could have been...
As for balancing for 6v6, I'm glad you think balancing is done with comp in mind but I'm sorry to say that never has been the case, unless somehow you think the 70%+ alien winrates in comp is more balanced than the 60% in pubs.
As for rewarding skilled players, quite honestly NS2 falls way short there, at least in comparison to NS1. And that extends way beyond RFK, and into game mechanics.
If RFK is some evil horrible thing, then why do 500k people play dota2 where you have a implementation of RFK that is arguably less forgiving then whats discussed here?
ok so you point out mechanics people like in other games, but try to say RFK will ruin pubs in NS2, yet other games have it and are successful... I fail to see what the point of this is anymore.
people are still really overstating the effect any of this stuff will have on "fixing" the game.
NS2 would need a complete rework to really be a significantly better game in either pub or competitive settings.
It has a ton of mechanics that are very difficult for new players and trivially easy for good players. It has a skill curve far too steep for the amount of people playing it. It has mechanics that punish players for experimenting. It does not allow for much autonomous behavior. It is strategically shallow. There aren't enough mechanics that are rewarding without being hard to perform (for the newer players).
These issues aren't even touching the massive performance and visual problems with the game.
7.5m people play WOW, why don't we add some tab targeting, leveling, and mounts.
TF2 peaks at 100k concurrent people. Let's add hats and crafting.
Not sure if you've noticed, but the concept of rfk is the last of three heavy core drivers remaining in WoW (exploration and role playing are both pretty obsolete now). Experience, honour, gold, questing, crafting, loot and raids... I could go on. The only thing you do in wow is kill monsters and/or other players, receive currency, spend currency. How do you think people get mounts? Have you been living under a rock for the past 10 years?
It's also pretty naive of you to miss the point that hat crafting in tf2 is just a 'casualised' version of rfk. Rewards given out based on hours played and random probability, instead of 'winning player actions.
*Also, hat crafting is clearly not related to gameplay. NS2 could implement the very same thing as tf2 and not affect gameplay at all. Just ridiculously stupid example gorgeous. Expected better.
7.5m people play WOW, why don't we add some tab targeting, leveling, and mounts.
TF2 peaks at 100k concurrent people. Let's add hats and crafting.
Not sure if you've noticed, but the concept of rfk is the last of three heavy core drivers remaining in WoW (exploration and role playing are both pretty obsolete now). Experience, honour, gold, questing, crafting, loot and raids... I could go on. The only thing you do in wow is kill monsters and/or other players, receive currency, spend currency. How do you think people get mounts? Have you been living under a rock for the past 10 years?
It's also pretty naive of you to miss the point that hat crafting in tf2 is just a 'casualised' version of rfk. Rewards given out based on hours played and random probability, instead of 'winning player actions.
*Also, hat crafting is clearly not related to gameplay. NS2 could implement the very same thing as tf2 and not affect gameplay at all. Just ridiculously stupid example gorgeous. Expected better.
NS1>NS2 and ns1 had rfk so we should bring it back right?... hey why don't we bring back the "give res" command from ns1 siege... 20 second fade 2 minute Exo...
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited August 2013
A flat-rate RFK will only cause NS2 games to be more one-sided.
RFK can only be balanced for enjoyment if there are large bounties for killing players influence the game the most (those with the most kills/assists).
Popular modern competitive games have such "stabilizer" RFK, to allow easier comebacks, and are hence more enjoyable to spectate. Example include Counter-Strike, where players can loot expensive weapons (eg AWP) off enemies. In Dota/LoL, players on killing streaks give away bigger bounties when slain.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
@twiliteblue That's actually a really good idea.. but how would you communicate it?
Would it be invisible and just reward those that obsessively look at the scoreboard for who to kill, or would you designate them as a high priority target through HUD indicators?
And lastly, like the prior pages of arguments have gone over... is K/D the only thing being considered? What about those BBing gorges?
If RFK is implemented, it shouldn't give res only to the person who got the killing blow (like how score is right now, or how DOTA does it).
Kills on big targets (fades, onos, exos) is almost always the result of teamwork, and only rewarding whoever was lucky enough to get the last hit is rather silly.
How it currently works in Combat would be ok (which I believe gives greater rewards for killing blow, but everyone in the vicinity, regardless of actual participation, gets some credit).
That being said, I'm against RFK as it seems to be adding complexity and potential issues for minimal gain.
A modded version that has it, maybe.
As part of the core game? Against.
That being said, I'm against RFK as it seems to be adding complexity and potential issues for minimal gain.
A modded version that has it, maybe.
As part of the core game? Against.
You can argue about the disadvantages, but I think the added complexity is minimal compared to the potential gain. It's the opposite of what NS2 does with many things right now.
A simple mechanic of 2 RFK to killer creates a whole dimension of how you feed res to certain players, when you're prioritizing kills over map control and all that. Rather than monotonically doing your thing all round until you get the res, you actually get to alternate between objectives such as acquiring res peaks, harassing economy or so.
All that finesse from a simple implementation. The included ability to adapt and adjust through small details is part of what makes NS1 such a satisfying long term game whereas NS2 struggles to hold people's attention over a wider time span.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
While I'm sure that RFK or any other RF_ system could work within NS2. If the goal is to reduce tech explosions, it's far from the best or most direct way to try and fix the problem.
The main thing that needs to be done to deal with tech explosions is to make sure that pre-explosion tech/units still have a notable role post-explosion.
i.e. Make sure that, after fades are available, skulks & gorges are still useful enough that a "racially diverse" team - with perma-skulks and perma-gorges - is just as viable as the whole team being fade.
And lastly, like the prior pages of arguments have gone over... is K/D the only thing being considered? What about those BBing gorges?
I'm still in favour of RFP, It includes kills AND the other ways of being useful to your team and a pain to the enemy. It would obviously be more work though, the points system would need a re-think.
And lastly, like the prior pages of arguments have gone over... is K/D the only thing being considered? What about those BBing gorges?
I'm still in favour of RFP, It includes kills AND the other ways of being useful to your team and a pain to the enemy. It would obviously be more work though, the points system would need a re-think.
My mod already reworked the point system somehow, less points for building,no points for cyst , hydras etc.
You can argue about the disadvantages, but I think the added complexity is minimal compared to the potential gain. It's the opposite of what NS2 does with many things right now.
A simple mechanic of 2 RFK to killer creates a whole dimension of how you feed res to certain players, when you're prioritizing kills over map control and all that. Rather than monotonically doing your thing all round until you get the res, you actually get to alternate between objectives such as acquiring res peaks, harassing economy or so.
All that finesse from a simple implementation. The included ability to adapt and adjust through small details is part of what makes NS1 such a satisfying long term game whereas NS2 struggles to hold people's attention over a wider time span.
The cons still outweigh the pros in my opinion when it comes to pub play. There's no point adding a mechanic to the detriment of many to benefit the few.
I don't know if we're playing the same game or not, but kills are pretty synonymous with map control in this game. Can make the argument of kills being the single most important determining factor in winning most games. Oh sure you can still win games while being destroyed by the enemy in terms of kills, but that is the exception and not the norm.
I don't care either way if RFK gets implemented or not, but I'm just saying it won't work with the way the resource model is structured at the moment. It's not as simple as you think as it will solve nothing and further compound the problems present in the game if implemented as is. Meaningful implementation of RFK requires it to play a major role in the resource model while a band-aid addon does nothing for the problems it's supposed to fix. This would require a radical change in the mechanic similar to what was done with aliens in b250.
The devs have already shown they are more than willing to radically change the game this far post-release. Can only wait and see if they implement something satisfactory to both sides (highly, highly doubtful). Perhaps use this opporunity to implement a more robust resource system to replace the bland and uninspired one we have today?
You can argue about the disadvantages, but I think the added complexity is minimal compared to the potential gain. It's the opposite of what NS2 does with many things right now.
A simple mechanic of 2 RFK to killer creates a whole dimension of how you feed res to certain players, when you're prioritizing kills over map control and all that. Rather than monotonically doing your thing all round until you get the res, you actually get to alternate between objectives such as acquiring res peaks, harassing economy or so.
All that finesse from a simple implementation. The included ability to adapt and adjust through small details is part of what makes NS1 such a satisfying long term game whereas NS2 struggles to hold people's attention over a wider time span.
The cons still outweigh the pros in my opinion when it comes to pub play. There's no point adding a mechanic to the detriment of many to benefit the few.
It's very much possible, although I'm not completely sold on the 'benefit of the few'. That's probably another story though.
I don't know if we're playing the same game or not, but kills are pretty synonymous with map control in this game. Can make the argument of kills being the single most important determining factor in winning most games. Oh sure you can still win games while being destroyed by the enemy in terms of kills, but that is the exception and not the norm.
I have to say I don't play NS2 enough to really go deep into this, but the basic idea is that you can either look for engagements and trades or avoid them. Often if you're looking to hit a res peak, you start contesting a lot more, take risks to get into a good positioning and so on. Meanwhile if your team's top priorities are elsewhere, you can play passive, keep the enemy busy on their nodes and so on.
I don't care either way if RFK gets implemented or not, but I'm just saying it won't work with the way the resource model is structured at the moment. It's not as simple as you think as it will solve nothing and further compound the problems present in the game if implemented as is. Meaningful implementation of RFK requires it to play a major role in the resource model while a band-aid addon does nothing for the problems it's supposed to fix. This would require a radical change in the mechanic similar to what was done with aliens in b250.
The devs have already shown they are more than willing to radically change the game this far post-release. Can only wait and see if they implement something satisfactory to both sides (highly, highly doubtful). Perhaps use this opporunity to implement a more robust resource system to replace the bland and uninspired one we have today?
As said multiple times before, RFK is no silver bullet to fix it all. At least I'm not marketing it as a cure-all at all. Neither am I expecting it to necessarily be simple at all.
Mostly I'm bothered by the lack of understanding people show towards the whole mechanic, its potential benefits and its adaptibility. Most people seem to see NS1 RFK and horribly misinterpret its influence to the game. I'd like to see RFK given a fair consideration and help people understand how it can positively influence things when it's used in a right way in a right place.
That being said, I'm against RFK as it seems to be adding complexity and potential issues for minimal gain.
A modded version that has it, maybe.
As part of the core game? Against.
You can argue about the disadvantages, but I think the added complexity is minimal compared to the potential gain. It's the opposite of what NS2 does with many things right now.
A simple mechanic of 2 RFK to killer creates a whole dimension of how you feed res to certain players, when you're prioritizing kills over map control and all that. Rather than monotonically doing your thing all round until you get the res, you actually get to alternate between objectives such as acquiring res peaks, harassing economy or so.
All that finesse from a simple implementation. The included ability to adapt and adjust through small details is part of what makes NS1 such a satisfying long term game whereas NS2 struggles to hold people's attention over a wider time span.
When I say added complexity, I wasn't referring to implementation difficulty.
Exactly what you pointed out is part of the added complexity.
It adds a whole lot more things to think about and is particularly damaging for a new player who already has a lot to think about even without the added worry of feeding the enemy.
It also adds complexity in terms of balancing around this new system and how it may or may not affect pubs more than comp play, etc.
There is also the complexity in balancing how much res is given, so it is meaningful but doesn't become so powerful that you might ignore actual res points for kills.
All of those things add complexity.
But for what gain?
I feel there would be better ways to add interesting decisions and choices to the game without so many added complexities and balance issues.
If RFK is implemented, it shouldn't give res only to the person who got the killing blow (like how score is right now, or how DOTA does it).
Kills on big targets (fades, onos, exos) is almost always the result of teamwork, and only rewarding whoever was lucky enough to get the last hit is rather silly.
How it currently works in Combat would be ok (which I believe gives greater rewards for killing blow, but everyone in the vicinity, regardless of actual participation, gets some credit).
That being said, I'm against RFK as it seems to be adding complexity and potential issues for minimal gain.
A modded version that has it, maybe.
As part of the core game? Against.
Dota does give gold and xp to ever player that was near the killed hero and for each tower killed, the whole team gets gold (and the player who got the last hit gets a bonus).
About complexity, you get money for killing stuff - how hard is that to comprehend? In case you are talking about do not meaninglessly feed your life and rfk to the enemy which would be the next level of understanding this mechanic. So all you need to know is that it is good to kill and bad to die, RFK just gives your virtual life a little more value and meaning in those 12v12 games.
That being said, I'm against RFK as it seems to be adding complexity and potential issues for minimal gain.
A modded version that has it, maybe.
As part of the core game? Against.
You can argue about the disadvantages, but I think the added complexity is minimal compared to the potential gain. It's the opposite of what NS2 does with many things right now.
A simple mechanic of 2 RFK to killer creates a whole dimension of how you feed res to certain players, when you're prioritizing kills over map control and all that. Rather than monotonically doing your thing all round until you get the res, you actually get to alternate between objectives such as acquiring res peaks, harassing economy or so.
All that finesse from a simple implementation. The included ability to adapt and adjust through small details is part of what makes NS1 such a satisfying long term game whereas NS2 struggles to hold people's attention over a wider time span.
When I say added complexity, I wasn't referring to implementation difficulty.
Exactly what you pointed out is part of the added complexity.
It adds a whole lot more things to think about and is particularly damaging for a new player who already has a lot to think about even without the added worry of feeding the enemy.
It also adds complexity in terms of balancing around this new system and how it may or may not affect pubs more than comp play, etc.
There is also the complexity in balancing how much res is given, so it is meaningful but doesn't become so powerful that you might ignore actual res points for kills.
All of those things add complexity.
But for what gain?
I feel there would be better ways to add interesting decisions and choices to the game without so many added complexities and balance issues.
I think your definition of complexity is a little off.
My brief description of 'negative' complexity is the amount of rules, exceptions, tech trees and all that you need to study before you get any overall understanding of the game. NS2 has a lot of this. There are lots of rules, everything has exceptions, some of the feedback is misleading, information has to be pieced together from illogical places and there aren't many clear patterns in the game structure.
Meanwhile 'positive' complexity is the depth of decisionmaking outside the very base understanding of the game. RFK goes to that. When it's implemented properly, your newbie doesn't really need to worry much about it, but your more experienced player sees loads of new options to adjust, adapt and influnce the smaller details of the game. The gain is a much more varied game where players feel like they've got more ways to help their team and influence the game in smaller ways.
Certainly it's going to take some effort to make it fit into the game and all that, but so it goes with every change.
I can see feeding being a slight problem depending on the implementation, but I don't think it's going to tip over anything critical. Newbies are detrimental to any team already, a properly implemented RFK wouldn't be much more than a drop in the ocean.
Also, I'm all open for your suggestion on how to add interesting decisions without adding your complexity there as they seem to overlap heavily.
So, to Summit up(L0L) - a list!
(Feel free to add more)
Pros:
1) Players get rewarded for killing things
2) Comebacks are slightly more possible
3) No more free suicide skulk rushes
4) Not as big fade or techplosion
Cons:
1) Aliens benefit more from it(arguably)
2) Could enhance snowballing, eg. 1 early fade destroying a0w0 marine pressure or cappers
3) Creates more negative atmosphere in pubs, eg. people calling out "feeders" etc.(minor)
4) Most of the time widens the gap between experienced players and casuals on pubs
5) It doesn't really fix the fade or techplosion meta
Of course most of these cons could be ignored or disregarded if the game would be built around the RFK so that only the pros would stay. But that is probably its greatest weakness. The whole resource and point system would have to be rebuilt and it would require a lot of time and testing.
So, in my opinion it shouldn't be regarded as high priority, as it only fixes small problems that aren't really that gamebreaking or things that could be fixed by other means as well. But, eventually I would like to see RFK or RFP implemented in game as it sounds fairly interesting.
Edit: On the other hand, if sewlek really wants to implement this he should probably start doing it now since it might ruin other balance changes that he has in mind for current system. :P
Comments
Here's a bright idea! Why not just hardcap servers to 12p so the game becomes easier to balance and the devs can actually get accurate data from pub play? Sure a good number of the playerbase will be very annoyed and most likely leave the game permanently, but BALANCE! Adapt or GTFO right?
You're assuming that rewarding player skill is a good thing. It's a valid opinion, but not a universal one.
For the people who play public games, further rewarding the elite players is not helping their enjoyment in any way.
If a good alien can fade a few minutes sooner because of RFK, it is even less enjoyable for the marines.
If a good marine can just repurchase his loadout after you finally manage to kill him after many fail attempts, it is even less enjoyable for the aliens.
It's not about "gameplay facts." The issue is that your premise is not a fact, but an opinion
Even in competitive play, widening the skill gap between teams isn't going to do anyone favors. it's not like the game doesn't reward skill enough already
Please see the previous 3 pages.
Now, would someone actually provide a reason FOR implementing RFK, other than "it makes losing life forms more forgiving" because that can be done a dozen different ways that don't have downsides from rfk.
And every other benefit that's been given as a reason has been thanks to complementary mechanics that'd be introduced - mechanics that are commonly already suggested and don't require RFK to work!
Also, since those who support it keep telling the rest of us that we just don't understand... I'm afraid the burden to provide reason falls on you enlightened ones.
Its like you're ignoring the fact that the gain /reward is compounding with RFK.. And only for those few top individuals.
And if the dozens of "stacked teams", "skill gap too high ", and "we need ranked servers" threads in the previous months are any indication.. Pubs don't need to have that one player who carries the team to be rewarded anymore than they already are?
But if we think about it a little bit, do public players not gain anything from getting these kills as well? Won't they get more opportunities to go adv lifeforms and use other weapons than lmg? Instead of only focusing on this one aspect where a experienced player will get bit more pres than the other players you can actually see that rfk does not only give that player a boost. It gives everyone in the team a boost.
Its true that I can only give arguments from my experience and knowledge but saying a gameplay mechanic is simply bad just because some players can gain more from it is simply not logical. Like mentioned before you can apply that to every single mechanic to the game, if we would not be allowed to have any reward with skill we could play pong where both players fill the screen so the ball never gets through. Does that mean we should ignore all the other positive and/or negative parts of the mechanic without looking at it from all angles?
After we figure out all the positives and the negatives we can think about how to make the mechanic as effective as possible, would be best if 1pres per kill would be enough but maybe there is a another solution? Might turn out its not as good as it sounds to be, if not then at least we gave it a fair chance. I mean if there is another solution to all the issues mentioned in the document that is better than RFK I'm sure everyone would not hesitate to go for it. At least try to use arguments that are connected to the gameplay, not the skill difference. If there is a skill difference the team that plays better will win, does not matter if there is RFK or not.
I still remember my days when I started playing ns1, even though there were better players on the server I was simply happy to get my extra res to go lifeform again. In the end it was much more fun to play a adv lifeform than staying skulk. Having more chances to do that would definitely be a plus.
"99% of the stuff posted here is horrible incorrect but I'm going to be vague and not tell you why because you wouldn't actually understand it anyway."
fucking lol'd so hard
Couldn't everyone get more opportunities to go adv lifeforms and use other weapons if you simply halved the cost of every lifeform? That doesn't mean that halving the cost of everything is a good idea.
What if players gained health and damage (highlander style) every time they killed an enemy? Wouldn't this reward some players more than others? The fact that it favors better players doesn't mean it is a good idea, either. I think people are not dismissing RFK out of hand; they're dismissing it because it widens an already very large skill-gap. This is easily seen in pubs.
How is exasperating the skill difference not connected to the gameplay? To many people, as evidenced in this thread, a large increase in skill-gap will be detrimental to their gameplay because it will decrease the enjoyment they get out of the game.
As for balancing for 6v6, I'm glad you think balancing is done with comp in mind but I'm sorry to say that never has been the case, unless somehow you think the 70%+ alien winrates in comp is more balanced than the 60% in pubs.
As for rewarding skilled players, quite honestly NS2 falls way short there, at least in comparison to NS1. And that extends way beyond RFK, and into game mechanics.
If RFK is some evil horrible thing, then why do 500k people play dota2 where you have a implementation of RFK that is arguably less forgiving then whats discussed here?
TF2 peaks at 100k concurrent people. Let's add hats and crafting.
NS2 would need a complete rework to really be a significantly better game in either pub or competitive settings.
It has a ton of mechanics that are very difficult for new players and trivially easy for good players. It has a skill curve far too steep for the amount of people playing it. It has mechanics that punish players for experimenting. It does not allow for much autonomous behavior. It is strategically shallow. There aren't enough mechanics that are rewarding without being hard to perform (for the newer players).
These issues aren't even touching the massive performance and visual problems with the game.
Not sure if you've noticed, but the concept of rfk is the last of three heavy core drivers remaining in WoW (exploration and role playing are both pretty obsolete now). Experience, honour, gold, questing, crafting, loot and raids... I could go on. The only thing you do in wow is kill monsters and/or other players, receive currency, spend currency. How do you think people get mounts? Have you been living under a rock for the past 10 years?
It's also pretty naive of you to miss the point that hat crafting in tf2 is just a 'casualised' version of rfk. Rewards given out based on hours played and random probability, instead of 'winning player actions.
*Also, hat crafting is clearly not related to gameplay. NS2 could implement the very same thing as tf2 and not affect gameplay at all. Just ridiculously stupid example gorgeous. Expected better.
Δ
Great points. You've changed my view.
RFK can only be balanced for enjoyment if there are large bounties for killing players influence the game the most (those with the most kills/assists).
Popular modern competitive games have such "stabilizer" RFK, to allow easier comebacks, and are hence more enjoyable to spectate. Example include Counter-Strike, where players can loot expensive weapons (eg AWP) off enemies. In Dota/LoL, players on killing streaks give away bigger bounties when slain.
Would it be invisible and just reward those that obsessively look at the scoreboard for who to kill, or would you designate them as a high priority target through HUD indicators?
And lastly, like the prior pages of arguments have gone over... is K/D the only thing being considered? What about those BBing gorges?
it is, why do you think cod is so popular?
Kills on big targets (fades, onos, exos) is almost always the result of teamwork, and only rewarding whoever was lucky enough to get the last hit is rather silly.
How it currently works in Combat would be ok (which I believe gives greater rewards for killing blow, but everyone in the vicinity, regardless of actual participation, gets some credit).
That being said, I'm against RFK as it seems to be adding complexity and potential issues for minimal gain.
A modded version that has it, maybe.
As part of the core game? Against.
A simple mechanic of 2 RFK to killer creates a whole dimension of how you feed res to certain players, when you're prioritizing kills over map control and all that. Rather than monotonically doing your thing all round until you get the res, you actually get to alternate between objectives such as acquiring res peaks, harassing economy or so.
All that finesse from a simple implementation. The included ability to adapt and adjust through small details is part of what makes NS1 such a satisfying long term game whereas NS2 struggles to hold people's attention over a wider time span.
The main thing that needs to be done to deal with tech explosions is to make sure that pre-explosion tech/units still have a notable role post-explosion.
i.e. Make sure that, after fades are available, skulks & gorges are still useful enough that a "racially diverse" team - with perma-skulks and perma-gorges - is just as viable as the whole team being fade.
I'm still in favour of RFP, It includes kills AND the other ways of being useful to your team and a pain to the enemy. It would obviously be more work though, the points system would need a re-think.
The cons still outweigh the pros in my opinion when it comes to pub play. There's no point adding a mechanic to the detriment of many to benefit the few.
I don't know if we're playing the same game or not, but kills are pretty synonymous with map control in this game. Can make the argument of kills being the single most important determining factor in winning most games. Oh sure you can still win games while being destroyed by the enemy in terms of kills, but that is the exception and not the norm.
I don't care either way if RFK gets implemented or not, but I'm just saying it won't work with the way the resource model is structured at the moment. It's not as simple as you think as it will solve nothing and further compound the problems present in the game if implemented as is. Meaningful implementation of RFK requires it to play a major role in the resource model while a band-aid addon does nothing for the problems it's supposed to fix. This would require a radical change in the mechanic similar to what was done with aliens in b250.
The devs have already shown they are more than willing to radically change the game this far post-release. Can only wait and see if they implement something satisfactory to both sides (highly, highly doubtful). Perhaps use this opporunity to implement a more robust resource system to replace the bland and uninspired one we have today?
I have to say I don't play NS2 enough to really go deep into this, but the basic idea is that you can either look for engagements and trades or avoid them. Often if you're looking to hit a res peak, you start contesting a lot more, take risks to get into a good positioning and so on. Meanwhile if your team's top priorities are elsewhere, you can play passive, keep the enemy busy on their nodes and so on.
As said multiple times before, RFK is no silver bullet to fix it all. At least I'm not marketing it as a cure-all at all. Neither am I expecting it to necessarily be simple at all.
Mostly I'm bothered by the lack of understanding people show towards the whole mechanic, its potential benefits and its adaptibility. Most people seem to see NS1 RFK and horribly misinterpret its influence to the game. I'd like to see RFK given a fair consideration and help people understand how it can positively influence things when it's used in a right way in a right place.
Exactly what you pointed out is part of the added complexity.
It adds a whole lot more things to think about and is particularly damaging for a new player who already has a lot to think about even without the added worry of feeding the enemy.
It also adds complexity in terms of balancing around this new system and how it may or may not affect pubs more than comp play, etc.
There is also the complexity in balancing how much res is given, so it is meaningful but doesn't become so powerful that you might ignore actual res points for kills.
All of those things add complexity.
But for what gain?
I feel there would be better ways to add interesting decisions and choices to the game without so many added complexities and balance issues.
Dota does give gold and xp to ever player that was near the killed hero and for each tower killed, the whole team gets gold (and the player who got the last hit gets a bonus).
About complexity, you get money for killing stuff - how hard is that to comprehend? In case you are talking about do not meaninglessly feed your life and rfk to the enemy which would be the next level of understanding this mechanic. So all you need to know is that it is good to kill and bad to die, RFK just gives your virtual life a little more value and meaning in those 12v12 games.
I think your definition of complexity is a little off.
My brief description of 'negative' complexity is the amount of rules, exceptions, tech trees and all that you need to study before you get any overall understanding of the game. NS2 has a lot of this. There are lots of rules, everything has exceptions, some of the feedback is misleading, information has to be pieced together from illogical places and there aren't many clear patterns in the game structure.
Meanwhile 'positive' complexity is the depth of decisionmaking outside the very base understanding of the game. RFK goes to that. When it's implemented properly, your newbie doesn't really need to worry much about it, but your more experienced player sees loads of new options to adjust, adapt and influnce the smaller details of the game. The gain is a much more varied game where players feel like they've got more ways to help their team and influence the game in smaller ways.
Certainly it's going to take some effort to make it fit into the game and all that, but so it goes with every change.
I can see feeding being a slight problem depending on the implementation, but I don't think it's going to tip over anything critical. Newbies are detrimental to any team already, a properly implemented RFK wouldn't be much more than a drop in the ocean.
Also, I'm all open for your suggestion on how to add interesting decisions without adding your complexity there as they seem to overlap heavily.
(Feel free to add more)
Pros:
1) Players get rewarded for killing things
2) Comebacks are slightly more possible
3) No more free suicide skulk rushes
4) Not as big fade or techplosion
Cons:
1) Aliens benefit more from it(arguably)
2) Could enhance snowballing, eg. 1 early fade destroying a0w0 marine pressure or cappers
3) Creates more negative atmosphere in pubs, eg. people calling out "feeders" etc.(minor)
4) Most of the time widens the gap between experienced players and casuals on pubs
5) It doesn't really fix the fade or techplosion meta
Of course most of these cons could be ignored or disregarded if the game would be built around the RFK so that only the pros would stay. But that is probably its greatest weakness. The whole resource and point system would have to be rebuilt and it would require a lot of time and testing.
So, in my opinion it shouldn't be regarded as high priority, as it only fixes small problems that aren't really that gamebreaking or things that could be fixed by other means as well. But, eventually I would like to see RFK or RFP implemented in game as it sounds fairly interesting.
Edit: On the other hand, if sewlek really wants to implement this he should probably start doing it now since it might ruin other balance changes that he has in mind for current system. :P