there too many "ideas" that havent fully been thought out or tested so its all moot.
If someone sucks at fade, and they like playing the unit, they should be able to go fade as much as possible. because it is fun for them. it iz also rewarding being a marine and killing a fade.
its more fun to add elements to a game then to take those elements away in order to create perceived fairness.
i dont really care about whats fair. i care about whats fun.
an example is a 15 res jetpacker can kill an onos with a shotgun.
35 res marine. its not fair....but its hella fun.
same as a couple skulks or gorge migjt be able to kill an exo.
i personally would like to see the alien commander removed all together and giving the gorge its ability to be the commander again. this would provide the following benefits
its more asymmetrical
going 5-6 fade ball would have a downside, because there would need to be 1-2 aliens going gorge to rebuild Rt's, defenses, hives, and upgrades
because of the pres sink required as a gorge role there would be again less fades
dropping a hive from server to repair because server is going to get killed is harder to achieve because of the requirement of a gorge present, this would allow the marines of having a better chance to win a "base race"
im okay with marines being able to buy their own weapons, with that said, i also would like to see what Locklear proposed.
but then people might say "but then its ns 1.5".. when really its not, and honestly whats wrong with that? its not like we payed 60 bucks for small improvements here and there and the game imo might just be much better
For instance, reduce the overall pres income for both teams, but allow the commanders to convert tres into pres for players of his choosing? You could use biomass/tech count as way of determining the transfer rate (making tech points a lot more important). That way pubbers still retain some of their autonomy as they will eventually gain enough pres on their own, while commanders have more control over what tech/lifeforms hit the field by donating specific amounts of res.
I think something like this was tried before in the BT, the difference here being that the pres conversion isn't going to everyone on the team, just the players the commander wants it to go. And by doing so it could break up the techplosions to some extent.
For instance, reduce the overall pres income for both teams, but allow the commanders to convert tres into pres for players of his choosing? You could use biomass/tech count as way of determining the transfer rate (making tech points a lot more important). That way pubbers still retain some of their autonomy as they will eventually gain enough pres on their own, while commanders have more control over what tech/lifeforms hit the field by donating specific amounts of res.
I think something like this was tried before in the BT, the difference here being that the pres convertion isn't going to everyone on the team, just the players the commander wants it to go. And by doing so it could break up the techplosions.
this is a clever idea however it has downsides, whats to stop a commander dropping someone a fade, that someone gets 20 kills before dying, but by that time the same person has 40 pres and gets to go fade again. its sort of the same thing right now, but the pres comes first, tres fades come later.
Well, that could be sorted by tweaking the numbers I suppose, or simply tying the ability to evolve into fade to a certain amount of biomass (3 for instance), to prevent insanely early fades. You have to take into account, if a commander drops large amounts of res into one player, that means he has less res to spend on the rest of his team/tech. So the choice is his to spread the res out more evenly and still orchestrate a fadeplosion, or gamble on getting one or two earlier fades out at the cost of delaying the rest.
In any case, overhaul or not, I feel the starting pres for aliens should in any case be lowered to something like 15 res, because the early game is way to short atm, for my taste at least.
For instance, reduce the overall pres income for both teams, but allow the commanders to convert tres into pres for players of his choosing? You could use biomass/tech count as way of determining the transfer rate (making tech points a lot more important). That way pubbers still retain some of their autonomy as they will eventually gain enough pres on their own, while commanders have more control over what tech/lifeforms hit the field by donating specific amounts of res.
I think something like this was tried before in the BT, the difference here being that the pres convertion isn't going to everyone on the team, just the players the commander wants it to go. And by doing so it could break up the techplosions to some extent.
What about the inverse, allowing players to donate pres to tres? a team could get all bound up in skulks, as a sacrifice for early hive/ upgrades, which could also help to cut down on life form explosions, later allowing more dynamic early play possibly. Would also draw on some ns1 gameplay as it required players to sacrifice pres for rts, ocs, hives, etc.
I definitely see how this could be a problem with Marine tech since it seems like part of the balance of gameplay is that marines usually can't tech up immediately, but hey, just throwing it out there. Maybe it'd be interesting to see lvl 1 armr/wpns against 3 chamber upgrade alien in 1st few minutes.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
I still prefer the other way:
lower the tres income and players can spend pres for the com to speedup the upgrade process.
If noone of the team is spending res you have early weak fades then (no upgrades). If some players spend some res (they become points for spending) you have some upgraded fades then but not the fadeball like we have atm.
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
You can, and currently do, play a resource game with roles.
Saying "I wouldn't pay for it if it wasn't an upgrade" just isn't true.. Because being able to play a rewarding role that impacts the round beneficially is all you need. Arguably, a gorge is not a combat upgrade from a skulk, yet because it performs vital roles to the team 's success, it is often chosen/ paid for.
Everyone is hitting walls in regards to coming up with a resource system that would probably never be implemented anyways.
Yet they not only discard lifeform composition as being a potential solution, (despite players like fana even agreeing) they deny it's current impacts even exists sometimes..
Frustratingly to me, these same players enjoy limitless design like 30 speed lifeforms and get upset when limitations are imposed, calling anyone who opposes of "watering down" the gameplay. When in fact said limitations are not only necessary but are what prevent such horrid imbalances we currently experience, but they insist even despite having actual tests in game with devs, demonstrate the pit falls of such limitless design.
Really? Slowing fade ROF and other limitations are "gimmicky"?
And what was placing a speed cap on skulks?
What about increasing their predictability in 250?
Most now appreciate these changes, but if you asked in game during the faster and more powerful skulk tests, the higher skilled players loved it and argued for it .. Despite the impacts on balance it had.
I feel the same is occurring for the fade.
I could easily see how restrictions impose a greater challenge on the player, yet that's never the argument. Instead its called watered down and gimmicky.
Tldr: we shouldn't be afraid of limitations and restrictions in order to balance a game. The few times this occurred have turned out to have been beneficial. Going the other route has lead us to a 75% imbalance almost a year after launch due to a singular lifeform. Ugh.
Limitations and restrictions will make this game stale, taking away options/freedom from players. Marines could use a second weapon, either the hmg( i know its boring a a bigger gun that does more dps with a lot of bullets but it works) or some kind of other high dps weapon. At the moment fades get away because shotguns do burst damage that isn't enough, there needs to be some kind of high dps weapon that isn't a shotgun. Another thing that really bothers me about marines right now is the current jetpack. I hate to use this as an example but in NS1 jetpack marines could either solo or in groups chase down fades, turning the tables on them and making for fun combat. The current jetpack is like a wimpy fart used to run away from aliens NOT to pursue them. Remember in ns1 the marine tech path at the proto lab was either JETPACK OR HEAVY which also was a great trade off. Now marines rush exos which is a boring endgame and jetpacks are never seriously used because they are garbage.
Basically don't nerf aliens; buff marines.
Give Marines another high dps weapon like the hmg or something more creative because flamethrowers/grenade launchers don't directly kill fades(gl and flamethrower are kind of spammy in large games which is not good gameplay)
Buff jetpacks acceleration speed because its current implantation is lacking strategic depth
Also what about hand grenades or motion tracking?
you know where some aliens had to lerk or gorge instead of everyone saving for fade...
TRES fades made fadeball inevitable?
that's fixable
skulks were too viable and gorge/lerk weren't necessary?
that's fixable
doesn't mean the whole concept of tres/pres is broken
if lerk is too hard and gorge is too boring, add another lifeform as an alternative...
or even a beefier skulk which costs some money if you don't want to get creative
the biggest problem is you expect marines to win by 7 minutes...
winning by 10 minutes was hard enough. 7 is just impossible
I agree that people are putting too many suggestions that it becomes too much for the devs and they dont know what to do. That's why there are so many issues with this game because UWE is trying to implement EVERYONES suggestions, but, you just can't do that. UWE needs to pick a direction and go through with it. They also shouldn't make changes solely on beta test servers (since the few that do go WANT changes often for what doesn't need changes) or separate forum posts.
Instead, they should spectate/play the game at least a little often and should adopt something similar to Planetside 2's Roadmap, so everyone has a say in possible changes and they can explain why. Even though you have to see PS2's roadmap to understand what it's like, I can explain some of it.
Basically, devs put possible changes (either coming from themselves or when a large group of people ask on forums) onto a "roadmap" (which is similar to a forum topic where players vote and can comment) which are organized in changes/group of changes that can be made for this month, next month, or in this games case, the next build. It works better when they are organized to a part of the site that links the changes and put's the timeline for which month, build, etc. This is the best and fairest way to decide on changes and devs could make the game MUCH better by implementing this (or something similar)
For instance, reduce the overall pres income for both teams, but allow the commanders to convert tres into pres for players of his choosing? You could use biomass/tech count as way of determining the transfer rate (making tech points a lot more important). That way pubbers still retain some of their autonomy as they will eventually gain enough pres on their own, while commanders have more control over what tech/lifeforms hit the field by donating specific amounts of res.
I think something like this was tried before in the BT, the difference here being that the pres convertion isn't going to everyone on the team, just the players the commander wants it to go. And by doing so it could break up the techplosions to some extent.
Our ideas are basically the same, but why bother letting the commander funnel money to individual players when he can just drop them items / lifeforms?
Is it just to prevent another player from stealing the item 1st?
I think funneling money would add a bit too much complexity for little value.
And Ironhorse, the game at release seemed to me to start out imbalanced not because of fades, but because of 3 minute Onos. And they fixed that by 1st requiring 3 hives to drop the Onos egg, and now finally nerfing him into the realm of un-fun. I’d hate to see the Fade go the same way till eventually you’re better off just sticking with a skulk/ gorge/ lerk.
I think a good, more powerful marine end game weapon (HMG or turn the minigun exo into the equivalent of an actual marine holding an HMG), combined with a reworked res system for both sides would work wonders for ballin’ while also promoting / forcing variety by necessity.
And I really think the reworked res system could be as simple as placing a Pres cap or just a reduced income flow.
I don’t think lowering starting team res would make much difference if nothing else was changed about the res system (this was suggested a few pages back now). It would just delay the fade/ shotty-ball.
PREHAPS RFK-P could be added in with a proper cap / reduced income flow, but I’d only look at that after the fact.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
The fade itself is nearly ok.
There only 2 things who made the fade "op":
Speed and ammount.
In that moment 3/4 if the alienteam can go fade its gg in 80% of the games.
You can lower the ammount by splitting the player res (like i mentioned above) wich end in an better lifeform-mix also.
And decrease the speed a bit
Thats all.
No need for shotgun-buffs.
We had multiple shotgun versions during the past and every version had downsides.
There are enough weapons against fades in the marine arsenal (flamer, shotgun, exo).
I still prefer the other way:
lower the tres income and players can spend pres for the com to speedup the upgrade process.
If noone of the team is spending res you have early weak fades then (no upgrades). If some players spend some res (they become points for spending) you have some upgraded fades then but not the fadeball like we have atm.
I like the idea of that, though I am not sure it would work out well enough in NS2.
I've kinda seen it in other games in a more "soft" version:
- Tribes Ascend lets you spend your earned credits on base upgrades like better Generator, better Radar and stronger Turrets. You are giving up a part of your resources for your team's benefit. Otherwise you could have used them to purchase vehicles for yourself or to call in orbital strikes on the enemy.
However, Tribes rewards the player for doing that by giving him a small amount of cash (about 5% of the original investment) in return for every two minutes that the respective building is not destroyed or for every kill that a Turret upgraded by that player gets.
- Monday Night Combat used earned cash to buy your personal character upgrades during the match. But you could also buy and upgrade base turrets with them or buy lane and eliminator bots that would help you push towards the enemy. In both cases were the respective things parented to the player, so he would get the cash bonus for everything that got destroyed by something that he purchased.
I don't see where the 75% imbalance figures comes from, I don't think pub winrates are any worse than 249 were most likely. Comp is a bit worse off now, but honestly it wasn't great before 250 either, and I think while most people will agree that gameplay is less balanced, its arguably more fun.
Yes many players, including myself, said that the 20 speed skulk was 'fun' - because it was fun. That doesn't mean it was balanced, nor did we ever think it was. That also doesn't mean I think the current fade is balanced. I was arguing for changes to the fade before 250 was ever released, and its those same changes that I still want to see made. I would say 95% of the current gameplay that has resulted from 250 was accurately predicted, the only wildcards really being the absolute strength of babblers early game, and how crazy whips can be in turtles.
Totally gimping lifeforms is not the answer. The fade is probably the most unique(and for me) most enjoyable higher life form on the aliens side, hes your shock troop. Nerfing him beside cost shouldn't even be done. Remember, marines haven't had much added to them in the patches its always been new things for aliens.
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
An HMG will not only counter fades, but also everything else.
So sure, by all means don't nerf the fade by having it somewhat depend on teammates like every other class - but now the burden becomes designing the counter to mass fades and only mass fades (else you skew the balance horribly)... Good luck finding that solution.
Personally I think it'd be better to extend the early game, and make lerks more viable, making mass tech of any kind just too risky and encouraging other life forms.
Currently the lerk is NOT the support class it should be. Maybe giving it gas first instead of useless spikes would actually make it viable in helping skulks take down marines. Also what about resorting fade cost back to 50? or changing starting pres for aliens start with 18 (5 for gorge and then some for hydras). I would leave lerk alone till fade is fixed though.
Like exos currently do? There's no reason the HMG needs to become a WMD, but giving marines a bit more ranged firepower will do wonders for punishing fades that make mistakes.
As for extending the early game and making lerks more viable, how do you propose a solution where the early game lasts longer (say 12 minutes) before fades, but the marines dont completely stomp aliens with shotguns? Make the lerk strong enough to handle shotguns? Then what stops the fades once they come if shotguns can be stopped by lerks? Do you not see the problem with that logic, your just shifting the balance tipping point around, not actually fixing anything.
I really do enjoy how you'll shoot an idea down Ironhorse, with no logic or good reason, then you'll change the subject. Anyways, the HMG or a similiar weapon could be available once you research it at AA or after AA completes, with the appropriate cost. When hmgs come out in ns1 it they didn't make the skulks/lerks/gorges completely useless. They just had to work together with fades a little more. Whats wrong with that? Encouraging team work and also buffing marines instead of the proposed complete gimping of the most unique and rewarding alien class?
You have to remember the HMG implanted right would be a soft counter to everything(high dps, ammo size) not the end all its claimed to be.
An HMG will not only counter fades, but also everything else.
So sure, by all means don't nerf the fade by having it somewhat depend on teammates like every other class - but now the burden becomes designing the counter to mass fades and only mass fades (else you skew the balance horribly)... Good luck finding that solution.
Personally I think it'd be better to extend the early game, and make lerks more viable, making mass tech of any kind just too risky and encouraging other life forms.
And I agree with most all you said, and if an HMG was dumped into the game as is, then you would absolutely have HMG balls running around that the aliens would not be able to kill (but that's only if the fade ball doesn't destroy the marine team 1st). I think the exact same thing would occur though if you weakened the fades, then you would have shotgun+JP balls running around the map.
But that's why I think the resource model needs to be tweaked. I think that as long as the resource model is reworked to where it’s a huge gamble (or not possible) to wait and all go “X” at once, then the problem is nearly non-existent. You’d be either in the end game, or getting severely stomped if you ever see more than 2 fades/ onos/ HMGs/ what have you, at the same time.
Phosphor pellet upgrade for Shotgun - 10 pres. Burn those Fades to handicap their energy flow.
If we want to extend the early game, might as well go back to the 12.5-15 tres RTs to encourage more defensive and slow play that make the loss of an RT have quite an impact on the timing of tech.
I think for starters should the cost of Gorges just be increased again.
Currently there is no real drawback involved in going early Gorge: you are just 5-7 pres behind the rest of your team when they go Fade. Nothing to offset the "Fade ball" significantly enough.
And if the Gorge had more stuff to construct, there would be another pres sink and incentive for a player to go fulltime Gorge.
Webs are probably going to help a little in that regard.
Another thing would be to make Sentries player-deployed (1 for 10 pres) instead of relying on the comm, so you would have another pres sink for marines to offset their tech explosion in the lategame.
Grenades are probably going to sap from marine pres a little as well.
All in all it seems conflicting to make balance changes right now, under the prospect that the next big content patch might introduce new gameplay elements that can shift the balancing and use of pres around again.
Like exos currently do? There's no reason the HMG needs to become a WMD, but giving marines a bit more ranged firepower will do wonders for punishing fades that make mistakes.
As for extending the early game and making lerks more viable, how do you propose a solution where the early game lasts longer (say 12 minutes) before fades, but the marines dont completely stomp aliens with shotguns? Make the lerk strong enough to handle shotguns? Then what stops the fades once they come if shotguns can be stopped by lerks? Do you not see the problem with that logic, your just shifting the balance tipping point around, not actually fixing anything.
I think slowing down tech fixes this. You won't be pushing back fades so much as individually extending every single phase of the game.
0-0 marines vs unupgraded skulks will can be longer, 0-1 marines vs lerks can be longer, 1-1 shotguns vs lerks can be longer (ranged gas helps this alot in my opinion).
I'm in a rush, but it's not just a matter of saying fades come out at a later time. It's a matter of extending the phases such that during any of them a team can use their advantage such that they can win with extremely good play, but will more than likely be countered. This should lead up to a "phase" with fades focused around the second hive drop, it's defense, and the marines desperate last and depending on the earlier phase, best chance to destroy that hive. Destroying that hive should deny aliens "phase-changing" tech that gives marines an almost definite win and vice-versa.
Like exos currently do? There's no reason the HMG needs to become a WMD, but giving marines a bit more ranged firepower will do wonders for punishing fades that make mistakes.
As for extending the early game and making lerks more viable, how do you propose a solution where the early game lasts longer (say 12 minutes) before fades, but the marines dont completely stomp aliens with shotguns? Make the lerk strong enough to handle shotguns? Then what stops the fades once they come if shotguns can be stopped by lerks? Do you not see the problem with that logic, your just shifting the balance tipping point around, not actually fixing anything.
Yes just like exos.
Its been over a year and we're still adjusting them.. (and consequently the game around them) .. do you really want to go through with that again?
Because so far the only iteration i've seen of this proposal was not fade specific, meaning it would upset balance, and possibly make exos less viable given their mountain of downsides in comparison.
I'd rather the exos be made into whatever the HMG would solve because at least then there's a counter... otherwise you get what @chubby chu said : "then you would absolutely have HMG balls running around that the aliens would not be able to kill (but that's only if the fade ball doesn't destroy the marine team 1st)."
So while exos at least have downsides and counters like BB, what would the counter to a JP + HMG be? ...... More fades. -_-
As for the early game, yes i agree you would absolutely have to adjust the other side's tech timings to accommodate? This is what happens when you balance around no early game and 6-7 min fade balls, of course you'd have to change some timings on the other team. The alternative is to do what, introduce yet another mass tech solution into the mix that destroys everything, like HMGs? That only shifts the tipping point around, not actually fixing anything.
Yes many players, including myself, said that the 20 speed skulk was 'fun' - because it was fun. That doesn't mean it was balanced, nor did we ever think it was. That also doesn't mean I think the current fade is balanced.
Thank you.. that was a very reasonable response given my frustrated rant on the matter.
Sometimes to me it seems like everyone is afraid to ever so much as suggest lessening the amount of fun, in the name of balance .. not that the two are necessarily always inversely related.
@larks i thought i provided enough reason and stayed on topic. If you require further explanation of what i'm trying to convey, just let me know, i'm only explaining so much considering how much ground we've already covered in the past here. Meaning sometimes i assume everyone is on the same page so no need to explain why in theory the HMG wouldn't be "fade specific" being just a higher dps, higher magazine size hitscan weapon.
But i am not about excluding others from a conversation, so feel free to inquire.
So you expect marines to be on 1-1 at 12 minutes? How much are you expecting to delay marine tech? Honestly at that pace games would take 30-40 minutes to complete, that's really not a good timeframe. Without making marine research costs astronomical I see no good way to accomplish that - early game marines will always hold more RTs, the game would just massively snowball away from aliens unless you give them the ability to hold on on almost no RTs (see current issues), where I see nothing being solved and the game just progressing at a snails pace.
Comments
If someone sucks at fade, and they like playing the unit, they should be able to go fade as much as possible. because it is fun for them. it iz also rewarding being a marine and killing a fade.
its more fun to add elements to a game then to take those elements away in order to create perceived fairness.
i dont really care about whats fair. i care about whats fun.
an example is a 15 res jetpacker can kill an onos with a shotgun.
35 res marine. its not fair....but its hella fun.
same as a couple skulks or gorge migjt be able to kill an exo.
its not fair, but its hella fun
We're talking about balancing for when skill is equal.
people use strategy and dynamics to level the field.
ps: sorry onos :d
1:1 KDR / team skill close -> strategy and tactics decide the win.
its more asymmetrical
going 5-6 fade ball would have a downside, because there would need to be 1-2 aliens going gorge to rebuild Rt's, defenses, hives, and upgrades
because of the pres sink required as a gorge role there would be again less fades
dropping a hive from server to repair because server is going to get killed is harder to achieve because of the requirement of a gorge present, this would allow the marines of having a better chance to win a "base race"
im okay with marines being able to buy their own weapons, with that said, i also would like to see what Locklear proposed.
but then people might say "but then its ns 1.5".. when really its not, and honestly whats wrong with that? its not like we payed 60 bucks for small improvements here and there and the game imo might just be much better
For instance, reduce the overall pres income for both teams, but allow the commanders to convert tres into pres for players of his choosing? You could use biomass/tech count as way of determining the transfer rate (making tech points a lot more important). That way pubbers still retain some of their autonomy as they will eventually gain enough pres on their own, while commanders have more control over what tech/lifeforms hit the field by donating specific amounts of res.
I think something like this was tried before in the BT, the difference here being that the pres conversion isn't going to everyone on the team, just the players the commander wants it to go. And by doing so it could break up the techplosions to some extent.
this is a clever idea however it has downsides, whats to stop a commander dropping someone a fade, that someone gets 20 kills before dying, but by that time the same person has 40 pres and gets to go fade again. its sort of the same thing right now, but the pres comes first, tres fades come later.
Well, that could be sorted by tweaking the numbers I suppose, or simply tying the ability to evolve into fade to a certain amount of biomass (3 for instance), to prevent insanely early fades. You have to take into account, if a commander drops large amounts of res into one player, that means he has less res to spend on the rest of his team/tech. So the choice is his to spread the res out more evenly and still orchestrate a fadeplosion, or gamble on getting one or two earlier fades out at the cost of delaying the rest.
In any case, overhaul or not, I feel the starting pres for aliens should in any case be lowered to something like 15 res, because the early game is way to short atm, for my taste at least.
What about the inverse, allowing players to donate pres to tres? a team could get all bound up in skulks, as a sacrifice for early hive/ upgrades, which could also help to cut down on life form explosions, later allowing more dynamic early play possibly. Would also draw on some ns1 gameplay as it required players to sacrifice pres for rts, ocs, hives, etc.
I definitely see how this could be a problem with Marine tech since it seems like part of the balance of gameplay is that marines usually can't tech up immediately, but hey, just throwing it out there. Maybe it'd be interesting to see lvl 1 armr/wpns against 3 chamber upgrade alien in 1st few minutes.
Maybe?
lower the tres income and players can spend pres for the com to speedup the upgrade process.
If noone of the team is spending res you have early weak fades then (no upgrades). If some players spend some res (they become points for spending) you have some upgraded fades then but not the fadeball like we have atm.
Saying "I wouldn't pay for it if it wasn't an upgrade" just isn't true.. Because being able to play a rewarding role that impacts the round beneficially is all you need. Arguably, a gorge is not a combat upgrade from a skulk, yet because it performs vital roles to the team 's success, it is often chosen/ paid for.
Everyone is hitting walls in regards to coming up with a resource system that would probably never be implemented anyways.
Yet they not only discard lifeform composition as being a potential solution, (despite players like fana even agreeing) they deny it's current impacts even exists sometimes..
Frustratingly to me, these same players enjoy limitless design like 30 speed lifeforms and get upset when limitations are imposed, calling anyone who opposes of "watering down" the gameplay. When in fact said limitations are not only necessary but are what prevent such horrid imbalances we currently experience, but they insist even despite having actual tests in game with devs, demonstrate the pit falls of such limitless design.
Really? Slowing fade ROF and other limitations are "gimmicky"?
And what was placing a speed cap on skulks?
What about increasing their predictability in 250?
Most now appreciate these changes, but if you asked in game during the faster and more powerful skulk tests, the higher skilled players loved it and argued for it .. Despite the impacts on balance it had.
I feel the same is occurring for the fade.
I could easily see how restrictions impose a greater challenge on the player, yet that's never the argument. Instead its called watered down and gimmicky.
Tldr: we shouldn't be afraid of limitations and restrictions in order to balance a game. The few times this occurred have turned out to have been beneficial. Going the other route has lead us to a 75% imbalance almost a year after launch due to a singular lifeform. Ugh.
Basically don't nerf aliens; buff marines.
Give Marines another high dps weapon like the hmg or something more creative because flamethrowers/grenade launchers don't directly kill fades(gl and flamethrower are kind of spammy in large games which is not good gameplay)
Buff jetpacks acceleration speed because its current implantation is lacking strategic depth
Also what about hand grenades or motion tracking?
you know where some aliens had to lerk or gorge instead of everyone saving for fade...
TRES fades made fadeball inevitable?
that's fixable
skulks were too viable and gorge/lerk weren't necessary?
that's fixable
doesn't mean the whole concept of tres/pres is broken
if lerk is too hard and gorge is too boring, add another lifeform as an alternative...
or even a beefier skulk which costs some money if you don't want to get creative
the biggest problem is you expect marines to win by 7 minutes...
winning by 10 minutes was hard enough. 7 is just impossible
Instead, they should spectate/play the game at least a little often and should adopt something similar to Planetside 2's Roadmap, so everyone has a say in possible changes and they can explain why. Even though you have to see PS2's roadmap to understand what it's like, I can explain some of it.
Basically, devs put possible changes (either coming from themselves or when a large group of people ask on forums) onto a "roadmap" (which is similar to a forum topic where players vote and can comment) which are organized in changes/group of changes that can be made for this month, next month, or in this games case, the next build. It works better when they are organized to a part of the site that links the changes and put's the timeline for which month, build, etc. This is the best and fairest way to decide on changes and devs could make the game MUCH better by implementing this (or something similar)
Our ideas are basically the same, but why bother letting the commander funnel money to individual players when he can just drop them items / lifeforms?
Is it just to prevent another player from stealing the item 1st?
I think funneling money would add a bit too much complexity for little value.
And Ironhorse, the game at release seemed to me to start out imbalanced not because of fades, but because of 3 minute Onos. And they fixed that by 1st requiring 3 hives to drop the Onos egg, and now finally nerfing him into the realm of un-fun. I’d hate to see the Fade go the same way till eventually you’re better off just sticking with a skulk/ gorge/ lerk.
I think a good, more powerful marine end game weapon (HMG or turn the minigun exo into the equivalent of an actual marine holding an HMG), combined with a reworked res system for both sides would work wonders for ballin’ while also promoting / forcing variety by necessity.
And I really think the reworked res system could be as simple as placing a Pres cap or just a reduced income flow.
I don’t think lowering starting team res would make much difference if nothing else was changed about the res system (this was suggested a few pages back now). It would just delay the fade/ shotty-ball.
PREHAPS RFK-P could be added in with a proper cap / reduced income flow, but I’d only look at that after the fact.
There only 2 things who made the fade "op":
Speed and ammount.
In that moment 3/4 if the alienteam can go fade its gg in 80% of the games.
You can lower the ammount by splitting the player res (like i mentioned above) wich end in an better lifeform-mix also.
And decrease the speed a bit
Thats all.
No need for shotgun-buffs.
We had multiple shotgun versions during the past and every version had downsides.
There are enough weapons against fades in the marine arsenal (flamer, shotgun, exo).
I like the idea of that, though I am not sure it would work out well enough in NS2.
I've kinda seen it in other games in a more "soft" version:
- Tribes Ascend lets you spend your earned credits on base upgrades like better Generator, better Radar and stronger Turrets. You are giving up a part of your resources for your team's benefit. Otherwise you could have used them to purchase vehicles for yourself or to call in orbital strikes on the enemy.
However, Tribes rewards the player for doing that by giving him a small amount of cash (about 5% of the original investment) in return for every two minutes that the respective building is not destroyed or for every kill that a Turret upgraded by that player gets.
- Monday Night Combat used earned cash to buy your personal character upgrades during the match. But you could also buy and upgrade base turrets with them or buy lane and eliminator bots that would help you push towards the enemy. In both cases were the respective things parented to the player, so he would get the cash bonus for everything that got destroyed by something that he purchased.
Yes many players, including myself, said that the 20 speed skulk was 'fun' - because it was fun. That doesn't mean it was balanced, nor did we ever think it was. That also doesn't mean I think the current fade is balanced. I was arguing for changes to the fade before 250 was ever released, and its those same changes that I still want to see made. I would say 95% of the current gameplay that has resulted from 250 was accurately predicted, the only wildcards really being the absolute strength of babblers early game, and how crazy whips can be in turtles.
Totally gimping lifeforms is not the answer. The fade is probably the most unique(and for me) most enjoyable higher life form on the aliens side, hes your shock troop. Nerfing him beside cost shouldn't even be done. Remember, marines haven't had much added to them in the patches its always been new things for aliens.
buff marines
So sure, by all means don't nerf the fade by having it somewhat depend on teammates like every other class - but now the burden becomes designing the counter to mass fades and only mass fades (else you skew the balance horribly)... Good luck finding that solution.
Personally I think it'd be better to extend the early game, and make lerks more viable, making mass tech of any kind just too risky and encouraging other life forms.
As for extending the early game and making lerks more viable, how do you propose a solution where the early game lasts longer (say 12 minutes) before fades, but the marines dont completely stomp aliens with shotguns? Make the lerk strong enough to handle shotguns? Then what stops the fades once they come if shotguns can be stopped by lerks? Do you not see the problem with that logic, your just shifting the balance tipping point around, not actually fixing anything.
You have to remember the HMG implanted right would be a soft counter to everything(high dps, ammo size) not the end all its claimed to be.
EDIT: people should really read Grissi's ns1 competitive play guide, it really shows the dynamic of weapons and lifeforms - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TNdpEVSgMToY99qNY-3a0D-PbhxryZ9Z1FoNhDeYV-c/edit?pli=1
And I agree with most all you said, and if an HMG was dumped into the game as is, then you would absolutely have HMG balls running around that the aliens would not be able to kill (but that's only if the fade ball doesn't destroy the marine team 1st). I think the exact same thing would occur though if you weakened the fades, then you would have shotgun+JP balls running around the map.
But that's why I think the resource model needs to be tweaked. I think that as long as the resource model is reworked to where it’s a huge gamble (or not possible) to wait and all go “X” at once, then the problem is nearly non-existent. You’d be either in the end game, or getting severely stomped if you ever see more than 2 fades/ onos/ HMGs/ what have you, at the same time.
Phosphor pellet upgrade for Shotgun - 10 pres. Burn those Fades to handicap their energy flow.
If we want to extend the early game, might as well go back to the 12.5-15 tres RTs to encourage more defensive and slow play that make the loss of an RT have quite an impact on the timing of tech.
I think for starters should the cost of Gorges just be increased again.
Currently there is no real drawback involved in going early Gorge: you are just 5-7 pres behind the rest of your team when they go Fade. Nothing to offset the "Fade ball" significantly enough.
And if the Gorge had more stuff to construct, there would be another pres sink and incentive for a player to go fulltime Gorge.
Webs are probably going to help a little in that regard.
Another thing would be to make Sentries player-deployed (1 for 10 pres) instead of relying on the comm, so you would have another pres sink for marines to offset their tech explosion in the lategame.
Grenades are probably going to sap from marine pres a little as well.
All in all it seems conflicting to make balance changes right now, under the prospect that the next big content patch might introduce new gameplay elements that can shift the balancing and use of pres around again.
I think slowing down tech fixes this. You won't be pushing back fades so much as individually extending every single phase of the game.
0-0 marines vs unupgraded skulks will can be longer, 0-1 marines vs lerks can be longer, 1-1 shotguns vs lerks can be longer (ranged gas helps this alot in my opinion).
I'm in a rush, but it's not just a matter of saying fades come out at a later time. It's a matter of extending the phases such that during any of them a team can use their advantage such that they can win with extremely good play, but will more than likely be countered. This should lead up to a "phase" with fades focused around the second hive drop, it's defense, and the marines desperate last and depending on the earlier phase, best chance to destroy that hive. Destroying that hive should deny aliens "phase-changing" tech that gives marines an almost definite win and vice-versa.
Its been over a year and we're still adjusting them.. (and consequently the game around them) .. do you really want to go through with that again?
Because so far the only iteration i've seen of this proposal was not fade specific, meaning it would upset balance, and possibly make exos less viable given their mountain of downsides in comparison.
I'd rather the exos be made into whatever the HMG would solve because at least then there's a counter... otherwise you get what @chubby chu said : "then you would absolutely have HMG balls running around that the aliens would not be able to kill (but that's only if the fade ball doesn't destroy the marine team 1st)."
So while exos at least have downsides and counters like BB, what would the counter to a JP + HMG be? ...... More fades. -_-
As for the early game, yes i agree you would absolutely have to adjust the other side's tech timings to accommodate? This is what happens when you balance around no early game and 6-7 min fade balls, of course you'd have to change some timings on the other team. The alternative is to do what, introduce yet another mass tech solution into the mix that destroys everything, like HMGs? That only shifts the tipping point around, not actually fixing anything.
Sometimes to me it seems like everyone is afraid to ever so much as suggest lessening the amount of fun, in the name of balance .. not that the two are necessarily always inversely related.
@larks i thought i provided enough reason and stayed on topic. If you require further explanation of what i'm trying to convey, just let me know, i'm only explaining so much considering how much ground we've already covered in the past here. Meaning sometimes i assume everyone is on the same page so no need to explain why in theory the HMG wouldn't be "fade specific" being just a higher dps, higher magazine size hitscan weapon.
But i am not about excluding others from a conversation, so feel free to inquire.
@Crushak : agree as usual