Balance-Discussion
Rammler
Join Date: 2013-06-18 Member: 185607Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2013-06-18 Member: 185607Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
Balance is a big part in an asymmetrical game like Natural Selection 2. In my expirience in build 251 we got a little bit balance issues between the aliens and marines. In my opinion we have a lot more alien wins than marine wins.
This is not just an assumption. Looking on websites like ns2stats.org gives us an overview about win-ratings in public gaming AND competitive gaming.
The statistics are awful.
Win rating in 251 pub: Marines: 39.9%. Aliens: 60.1%
Win rating in 251 comp: Marines: 24.18%. Aliens: 75,82%
Especially the comp rating was crazy. looking in the forums of the comp players i found this thread:
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/131308/div2-3-pcws-are-boring#latest
It seems we have a big balancing problem in division 2 and 3. Not even the pubs are suffering under the balancing problems, even the pro players have problems with the strong aliens.
but what can we do? i think its time to buff marines or nerf the aliens. since the balance mod in 250 and update in 251 marines got massive degradation: Weaker shotguns, armory does not heal armor, upgrades are more expensive, buy wielder all the time, e.t.c.
but aliens got buffed: faster skulks, early fades for 40. res, gorges for only 5. res, drifter can build and give "armory-enzym", more health with biomass, e.t.c.
i hope that some of the UWE-devs will read this and recognize the problems that we have in this game. in my opinion ratings like 24%:76% are far away from a good game
This is not just an assumption. Looking on websites like ns2stats.org gives us an overview about win-ratings in public gaming AND competitive gaming.
The statistics are awful.
Win rating in 251 pub: Marines: 39.9%. Aliens: 60.1%
Win rating in 251 comp: Marines: 24.18%. Aliens: 75,82%
Especially the comp rating was crazy. looking in the forums of the comp players i found this thread:
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/131308/div2-3-pcws-are-boring#latest
It seems we have a big balancing problem in division 2 and 3. Not even the pubs are suffering under the balancing problems, even the pro players have problems with the strong aliens.
but what can we do? i think its time to buff marines or nerf the aliens. since the balance mod in 250 and update in 251 marines got massive degradation: Weaker shotguns, armory does not heal armor, upgrades are more expensive, buy wielder all the time, e.t.c.
but aliens got buffed: faster skulks, early fades for 40. res, gorges for only 5. res, drifter can build and give "armory-enzym", more health with biomass, e.t.c.
i hope that some of the UWE-devs will read this and recognize the problems that we have in this game. in my opinion ratings like 24%:76% are far away from a good game
Comments
The biggest issue with the balance right now is connected to the alien resource flow, after they get to a certain point its near impossible to bring it back. This means that marines need to keep either an even game or an advantage throughout the game and have much less room for error. One of the biggest factor here is the ability to drop fade eggs. If marines don't manage to use their advantage before aliens manage to get a full fade ball out with overflow of tres then its really doubtful they will have any chance og coming back into the game.
Marines have to keep up really strong zoning and postitonal advantage throughout the game, if a fade ball manages to pick out 2-3 marines without taking any major damage your map control will probably be lost. It can be near impossible to get back if aliens use their advantages and take down a phase gate, but it is possible if marines have enough pres to spend.
Aliens also have a mobility advantage in the game, this allows the aliens to strike at any point in the map without much delay. That itself is ok but the problem is that they can use up skulks/gorges for baserushes and not get punished for it. Since there is no real gain outside mapcontrol for killing an oppoment both teams can suicide rush constantly later in the game with their base weapons/lifeforms. Aliens however gain more from this.
The balance of combat is actually pretty good in the game, currently there is more of a logistical factor that are causing issues. Marines could however get a buff in their basic movement so they would not depend on medpacks to survive against aliens. If marines had the ability to evade skilled alien you would increase the skill ceiling giving marines more room to improve.
Right now, I think 6v6 play is too contingent on Fade play. If Alien fades do well, they most likely win, if the marines manage to take out most of the alien fades (which you don't see often), the aliens will likely lose.
Maybe limit Alien spawning/increase respawn time so they are more heavily punished for dying in the early game.
-from a phone
I VERY much agree with marine movement. Two options is just not enough. And jumping down a ramp is usually not an option.
Base speed UP
Strafe acceleration UP
Speed/acceleration upon landing from jump DOWN (or the same)
sounds ridiculous, but that's how marines are expected to compete they way the game is designed.
before it was quite demanding also, but a bit more forgiving
even looking at raw win rates is misleading.
the stacked games will be 50-50
if you just look at the balanced games with two "even" teams, it's even more lopsided in favor of alien
This would have a couple of major advantages:
1 - more games that are actually balanced
2 - comp games can be balanced separately from pub games.
3 - you would get an idea of just how unbalanced the game is (and at what skill levels - you might get different bids in div 1 compared to other divisions).
You just look from the wrong side. Do you think the teams in Division 2 and 3 can not aim? This problem is deeper than just aiming. And by the way: We are no machines. Everyone can miss a target. If we would have a team with 100% aiming rate it would win ALL games. We should not try to see the 100% aiming marine as standard. as you can see on the win ratings the requirements on aiming and what marines should do is maybe too high
This is only a way to balance a tie-breaker and it does not balance a map. Big difference if the tie-breaker is veil compared to another map, no? However I think it IS a great idea for the tie-breaker, knowing the map and auctioning alien play for the tie-breaker ONLY. Sure that could be interesting and at least better than what we have now where the team who plays alien first gets that advantage.
If Grissi and Fana (both members of the best teams) said, there is something wrong with the balance, maybe there is something wrong?
Who knows.
And btw: i dont think "skillmovement" for marines is an solution for the current problems.
Especially the Lerk is very frustrating to play since it can be shot quite easily(everyone knows that rage if you are on low health, try to escape and get shot right bevor the saving corner)
Holy groundlerk, thats the reason for pub stalemates.
Aliens too weak?
So your balance formular is:
More armor to onos, more hp for lerk and more speed for fades?
75% pub alien wins are not enough it seems.
Hmm... well, maps are played in pairs, so I guess you could bid for each map rotation rather than just once. With enough games, you would then be able to figure out the per-map balance as well :-)
This is exactly my point. The developers have ridiculous expectations for how marines are expected to play relative to alien, and it's not working.
When it does kind of work, it only works for the very very elite teams and the rest of the game is unbalanced
What players need is the tools to be effective in different ways based on their individual skillsets. The problem is that anything field marines do (other than placing mines) is going to be limited by how well they can aim. the developers can only balance for some level of accuracy and anything outside that level will be broken.
Meanwhile aliens have this wide variety of options and support roles... yet people cry about grenades and flame being "too easy"
Yes please... in fact we should just start trying this out.
The introduction of momentum preservation when you jump on a higher surface was probably one of the best things Marines could get to potentially get an edge by out-maneuvering Kharaa players.
Two suggestions for evasive techniques for base-marines I can think of is either making Marine juking more competent, and/or something similar to the Exo's 360 directional boosting with a cool-down long enough so that there is some form high-risk, high-reward aspect to the decision making.
Don't get me wrong, I really like all of the changes that 250 has as well. But balance is key and I guess the lock is broke right now if marines have a 24% win ratio.
But even though mechanics are usually more important than balance its true that the alien dominance has stayed around for a quite awhile. But Sewlek is still pretty new at this so I think we should see how the next content patch turns out before we start having to many worries. Hopefully with few big changes it will be enough to turn it around.
Currently there are few mechanics that makes it really hard to balance up the alien play, one of the biggest being the fade factory and that its better to keep the alien commander out of the hive rather than in it. With that removed aliens will have to think more about how to keep their fades alive since they won't be getting new fades easily.
About the tech explosion, we can't really say that's a issue. The reason is that its simply part of how the resource system is made for ns2. The chances of reworking the whole resource system is quite slim and I would not expect that to happen. What can be done however is to adjust the game to allow marines to force aliens to spend extra pres in the early game. Not as a part of a pres sink but rather by forcing lerk and gorges. It would be nice to see other mechanics fit in there but it must be a mechanic that makes the gameplay better, not simply something that players are forced to spend pres on. There are alot of more stuff I could add but I think this enough for now
Now about Your comment Biz where you mention that accuracy is the most important skill for a marine, I don't agree with that. Its true that you need a pretty good level of accuracy but more importantly you need to know how to position yourself. Position and Movement is at least 50% of how good marines manage to get this really good accuracy you mention. Having good awareness, ability to coordinate with the marine next to you and predict the movement of your opponent is they key to victory. For example when fighting fades never do it in open areas when they have the whole room as their playing ground. You should try to force them to engage you where they have limited ability to move around allowing you to predict them with ease. The key difference between the strongest marines and the other marines is the ability to create these scenarios.
You can actually see a good example of just how important positioning is in fps games by watching the recent quakecon. After you reach a certain level of aim it gets much more important to maximize your other skills to support it.
Its almost like the Bidding system the Clans use in the battletech universe, where commanders show how elite they are by giving up advantages to make it a fair fight, and to minimise unnecessary losses.
So what do you propose? Make aliens easy to hit, slow them down, reduce health, etc. etc.? Then the people who can actually aim trællol alien teams and whenever you have a decent marine team, they easily win. It's extremely unpleasant to play aliens against competent marines in the early game right now, especially without carapace, let alone with further nerfs.
Aside from that discussion, IMO increasing the bullet size in 250 made marine gameplay an easy joke compared to what it used to be. I was sort of joking about adding glancing bullets if skulks get glancing bites in the 230 patches - and they finally kind of did :-D ... In effect, the larger bullets are like a larger bite cone - for marines :-) .
I think the concept of melee vs ranged is fundamentally flawed and impossible to balance - but what is there now is actually not too bad.
IMO, a pressing issue right now is that it feels like gorge is OP - imo the energy cost of heal spray should probably be at least double what it is right now, and should be obstructed the same way projectiles are obstructed by other marines. :-P There is no thought process (choice or timing) or consequence to heal spray spam - a gorge just needs to hold the button. And where there's no thought process, there's dull gameplay.
Also, it's too easy to get full carapace too early in the game IMO, which compounds the gorge problem even more. Starting t.res for both sides needs to be decreased to 20 IMO. That, or also let marines get weapons 2 20 seconds into a round (the equivalent of dropping 2 shells and gorge-building them).
What?!
The whole res situation in this game is a joke. We have TRes and PRes, which is confusing enough, but the commanders don't earn PRes as commanders because UWE hasn't fully thought through NS2.
Scrap everything, start from a perspective that you know works, and then add mechanisms that expand depth of strategy, playability, and enjoyment.
I really think NS2 should go back to the basics and implement customization options for players that suits their gameplay style. For instance, marines could unlock weapon attachments such as scope upgrades and increased magazine capacity based on their player score, or aliens could unlock adaptations that make their skulk model smaller with decreased hitbox, but slightly less armor.
Vanilla skulk and marine play is identical each match. Adding incentives to do well that also complements how you like to play the game makes gameplay more enjoyable. It also would help differ the game than the original.