Disable ARCs shooting into room with Command Station ("castle defense")
xnor
Join Date: 2013-09-06 Member: 187916Members, Reinforced - Gold
Join Date: 2013-09-06 Member: 187916Members, Reinforced - Gold
So, the idea is quite straight forward.
ARCs are "robotic vehicle built for besieging heavily infested Kharaa territory", but at the moment they can be deployed in base, abused for purely defensive means to prolong an already lost game.
This completely negates the ability to do whip rushes.
With rookies I've played two >70 min games now, where the aliens just couldn't finish the last marine base because they had all ups, all camped in base, plus has some ARCs deployed in base.
One game even was turned around after aliens got immensly frustrated and left the game... Yes, aliens had the whole map, couldn't finish the last marine base, eventually lost the whole map and game.
The other game was eventually reset by vote, again very frustrating.
So please add a minimum distance to Command Stations. ARCs that are within that range cannot be deployed.
edit: To arc rooms next to the 2nd tech point, for example, the ARCs should be able to be deployed anywhere but not be able to shoot into the same room if there is a Command Station.
edit2: Another option would be to make ARCs do AoE damage on nearby marine buildings.
ARCs are "robotic vehicle built for besieging heavily infested Kharaa territory", but at the moment they can be deployed in base, abused for purely defensive means to prolong an already lost game.
This completely negates the ability to do whip rushes.
With rookies I've played two >70 min games now, where the aliens just couldn't finish the last marine base because they had all ups, all camped in base, plus has some ARCs deployed in base.
One game even was turned around after aliens got immensly frustrated and left the game... Yes, aliens had the whole map, couldn't finish the last marine base, eventually lost the whole map and game.
The other game was eventually reset by vote, again very frustrating.
So please add a minimum distance to Command Stations. ARCs that are within that range cannot be deployed.
edit: To arc rooms next to the 2nd tech point, for example, the ARCs should be able to be deployed anywhere but not be able to shoot into the same room if there is a Command Station.
edit2: Another option would be to make ARCs do AoE damage on nearby marine buildings.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
- A big whip rush costs many resources. A team that can afford 3 hives, defend them and has the resources needed for the whip rush is clearly the superior team.
- Whips are not invincible. I have no idea why you say it would be 100% successful.
- BUT: With ARCs any whip rush with however many whips is 100% unsuccessful.
- "Alongside aliens" does not work, because the ARCs will immediately kill the infestation and whips, so the marines can camp and focus 100% on the aliens (shooting an Onos down in like 5 seconds).
Turning it around:
What buildings do aliens have to render ARCs completely useless?
Most importantly:
UWE once said the preferred round time is around 20 minutes.
How do 70+ min games fit into that?
Are there actually any arguments against this change?
Repeat ad nauseum. Also drifters.
Turning it around, shades are supposed to counter arcs (ink). I'm not able to say if it has ever worked.
As for arguments against this change, a 5 techpoint map means that marines might not be in a bad spot. Being unable to stop whips outside of posting marines in the locations would be a gg, and while rare, its entirely possible to win even if aliens get 3 hives.
Most importantly:
If a game has got to 3 hives and marines can turtle effectively, it was most likely more than 20 minutes. How long does it take to get bio9 alone?
That's what makes the whole situation so frustrating. Marines just put a few ARCs more or less safe outside a hive room and defend them till the job is done, next hive. That's trivial. All the comm needs to do is build them, send them there, tell people to defend.
Aliens need all kind of crazy lifeform combinations, tactics, and a commander that is really quick (do contaminate all the time plus echo in structures)... when most rookie comms don't even know what "whip rush" means!
You're arguing against your own argument here.
Even if a 5 techpoint map, letting the aliens get 3 hives plus probably more than 3 harvesters is a clear sign that the marines are playing worse unless the comm is a rookie and only gets the hives without bio or upgrades (in which case they'll never get bio9 nor win the game).
Even if aliens got 3 hives, it would still take quite some time to get bio9... time for marines to actually turn the game around. If they don't then I don't see a reason why they should be able to fortify their base.
Is this castle defense?
I think this is one if not the most annoying thing in ns2 right now. Marines camping in base, building ARCs, sentries .. with no sign of admitting that the game is lost.
Marines to siege a hive need:
-Phase gate
-Marines, some welding like crazy
-Arcs
-Scan
-Flamethrowers (this is the big one if spores)
-Counter to fade
And also, hope aliens don't counter with ink or base trade. Which they might. It's possible.
Marines might have been winning, who knows? It should not be a timer on 3 hives that aliens autowin, nor should XYZ for marines mean win either.
Oi, I'm trying to counter your points in a vacuum :P
...
That is semantics however, your main point (I think) is that for ~50+ Tres marines stop any chance of beating a turtle. (obs, robo, arc, arc and arc). If thats wrong please tell me however.
I'd like to think my main point is without arcs around a base a contaminate whip rush or even just a whip rush will be possibly a tad too powerful. Would it?
Lastly, while its not 100% relevant:
-What would it do to competitive games?
-What about situations where you need an arc in the CC room to siege the next room? No turtle, just a FOB.
If you have enough whips, only an absurd amount of arcs could kill the while fast enough
I don't see how this would do anything, I think I've only seen one or two times where Marines got enough money to spend it on ARCs, and that was only because bad Alien com not ending it when he could have with Contaminate Whip rush.
I was talking about the same situation as above, just reversed.
So marines have control over the whole map. They have nearly unlimited res. Aliens are extremely low on res, probably even lost some of their upgrades.
Marines can send in multiple ARCs from multiple directions. They can send in jetpacking GLs that rookie fades have a hard time getting down, if they even go fade.
How is this in any way comparable to the situation above, where aliens are supposed to win?
Again, aliens don't autowin. Bio9 is damn expensive, and you need the res for the whips, contamination and echo.
IF marines have been winning then please tell me how you define "winning". By not taking down any harvesters? By not taking down any hives?
This is no *lets camp in our base, get all upgrades, and finally attack* game. A successful team always attacks enemy RTs, bases.
What? So far no real arguments at all. Just some what-ifs pulled out of thin air.
My point is that it's frustratingly difficult in pub games to end a game as aliens vs teched up marines with ARCs in their base, compared to ending a game with marines.
No, again: a contaminate whip rush only happens at the very end of a long game.
One without contaminate means that you have to build cysts in the enemy base. If they don't notice that, then they deserve to lose their base. How is this more powerful then a gorge building a tunnel near that base and then maybe 2 or even 3 gorges instantly bilebombing the base?
1) In competitive games they don't play "castle defense". Have you ever seen a competitive game where they even reached bio9 and got ready to do a contaminate whip rush (serious game, not fun)?
2) Could be easily fixed: if the ARC is near a CC, let it deploy but not shoot into that range, only outside.
No, as soon as you contaminate the ~3 ARCs fire away destroying the contamination. So you actually have to be very quick and do contaminate multiple times at different places for a contamination to survive long enough to get a bit of infestation. BUT there is a couple of seconds cooldown on contamination...
Then you echo in the whips in the already receeding infestation. They will take damage from the AoE of the ARCs, and stop doing anything when the infestation is gone, which often happens (with enough ARCs) before the whips are even there. Place another contamination near (you have to place it close) and the next wave of AoE attacks will make matters worse.
No to the second point as well. It was a hard game and marines hard ARCs ready and teched up quite well, but we could finally stomp them with oni, take over their 2nd tech point (3rd hive). By the time we got to their base with bio9 they had full tech, lots of ARCs. Having control over the whole map didn't help. ~5 onos eggs didn't help. Rookies couldn't end it.
edit: Also, a commander can sell all the stuff in a second base, getting lots of resources. So they can easily build a few ARCs in base...
I disagreed with your post because of the reasons already others have pointed out here and some others. Arcs are a good way to defend also the entries of a base and taking this away don't make any sense ns2 is still a teamgame imho, so a commander shouldn't be able to win alone (and whips + team will always win again arcs and low marines).
But please don't go around and disagree to post of ppl just because the disagreed with one of your posts. That's not really adult behavior.
Also why should i just repeat what other allready said. That's what the agree/disagree function is for.
ARCs are clearly not made for defense. See the wiki and post #1.
Yes, it is a teamgame and no commander will get 3 hives, protect harvesters .. alone. That's another completely irrelevant point that is being made. This is just about finishing the game against lame camping marines which misuse ARCs to prolong a game which should have ended long ago (in some instances over 1 hour ago).
Yes, most such games end favorably for the aliens eventually, but it often is much more frustrating than it needs to be. This is really childish behavior, some would say even griefing.
Why? If you guys go around disagreeing without a comment I can do the same.
So no matter how irrelevant the points are, if someone posts something that disagrees with your post I should just click disagree on your post? Fine, I can do that.
Q: What do you suggest in a 70+ min game where the marines camp in base, with sentries and ARCs and your team just cannot end it?
That's abusing the feature, as well as acting immature. Stop it now. (This is not a request)
Just so you clearly understand the proper usage of the disagree / agree system:
Its meant as a method to validate or invalidate a comment through peer review, and has the benefit of appealing to those who can not, or do not want, to post a reply. They are using the system properly even if they do not reply - and they owe you nothing.
Using it as a system to exact revenge with whomever disagrees with you by stalking them and downvoting all of their posts throughout the forums - is using it improperly - that's called spamming.
Edit: I disagree with your idea, and so I clicked the button to voice my opinion on the matter. Everything has already been said that i would want to except that it can also provide for comebacks occasionally.
Great, I do not agree with your post, because it's another useless post without any points on the thread matter and I even post a reply!
I can understand downvotes without an explanation if it's about crazy suggestions, but this is about improving the game:
- making it less frustrating
- making ARCs offensive like they're supposed to (UWE didn't like sentry "tower defense", why not the same with ARC "base/castle defense"?)
- making games end "earlier" (well, usually well after 1 hour), like they are "supposed" to (more like 30 mins in pubs)
And you seriously work for the community? Wow.
Everything has been said? Ok, let me summarize:
"whip rush 100% successful" - nope, far from it, they just wouldn't be useless anymore in that particular situation
"echo in a shade and ink the whips" - nope, shades die instantly and the whips die fast too, as does the infestation so the whips do nothing
"2 onos bone shield to waste all marine clip" - doesn't deal with the issue and not all marines are that stupid
"a 5 techpoint map means that marines might not be in a bad spot" - nope, letting aliens reach Bio9 and build many whips means they definitely are in a bad spot
"Marines might have been winning" - nope, see point above, by over 1h marines should have all tech, many ARCs to attack multiple hives at the same time ... and if they cannot take down hives they are not winning
"If you have enough whips" - nope, whips can only be echoed onto infestation, which is hard to get if the arcs shoot down contamination instantly, and as soon contamination is gone the whips do nothing, even if you have 20
and more irrelevant stuff that doesn't deal with the problem/situation.
A 70+ min comeback, did you seriously just suggest that? I'm lost for words. I've heard bad arguments but that has to be the icing on the cake.
edit: So if this isn't getting fixed I guess there won't be nice, balanced games from me anymore. I will just always stack the better team to stomp the rookies for quick wins. Alrighty.
I see you removed your disagrees on all of ghoul's recent posts (outside of this thread). Thank you for using the system properly.
Yes i volunteer for this community, and *gasp* still maintain opinions about game design, too. :-h
1) I've pulled a comeback out of arcing whips out of base before
2) the problem you are describing has never occurred for me in the 1,000 hours i have put in over 3 years. Every turtle is breakable, eventually.
Here's some pointers on how to end a round :
Basically, there are a whole range of options, best of all imo is drifter + onos + multiple gorges bile bombing. Deployed arcs go down ffaaassst.
2) Complete non sequitur. You haven't experienced certain crashes either, I guess, does that make those crash report invalid? So please...
edit: It seems you've never played a really balanced game that takes 70+ mins...
Please visit all the rookies at home and tell them, cause they sure ain't gonna read and understand this.
I don't care anymore. If you support griefing then I really don't care about stacking or fair games anymore either. Who cares, I just want to have fun and such long games are not fun. Stacking and rookie stomping will make it worse for rookies, but who cares right, as long as I have fun. Cya in the winning team.
Back a while i played a 2 hours game and hit me but i enjoyed it and all ppl who played with me. We had a great comeback as marines after aliens failed to end it.
It's not a issue of arcs that your team wasn't able to end the round you describe, it's more because of a lack of team coordination.
This get down to the same debate should we remove the abilty to turtle as marines in generell. And i think most of us agree that turtling is only possible if the other team is unable to coordinate themself.
Rookies have to learn this at one point, removing the possibility to deploy arcs in your base would just take away alot of tactical posibilities in other situations (just think about maps with 5 techpoints ...).
And wouldn't fix the main issue "lack of teamcoordination", teamcoordination has to be learned and teached, you can't just patch it into the game.
I know that alot players don't like long rounds, but fine i wrote a little shine plugin back a while which allows you to set a max roundtime at which point the team with the higher sum of all (inc. players which may allready left) player scores wins.
I will publish it in the next days with [shine] ns2stats.
As you can see most of us disagree with you so take it, feel free to use the plugin, i'll provide to you, but don't expect us to agree to something we just can't agree to.
Most of the ppl who have posted into this thread have over 1500 hours playtime and therfor should know the game, so try to understand that we had this debate about turtling quiet often and the current state of the game is the result to which we came back then.
Yes, i know that feeling when you try the 5th whiprush just because your team is unable to rush in all together.
But come on, they have to learn how to do it, we would need a change if it would be impossible but it's not. And it's not even hard, it's just impossible for a commander to win via whiprush by himself.
And i think that's fine for most of us. Because a ns2 round is won/ lost by the team as hole.
Aliens must have loved it too, right.
Yes, by now you all convinced me. Screw the rookies.
I've just had some nice stacked wins. Quick and painless. That's fun.
Now, if I notice that a game would take too long I just switch to the stronger team or switch server where teams are stacked more!
I too have 1000 hours and was trying to comm some rookies, trying to explain the game to them, trying to explain to them how to end it. Not anymore. Screw the rookies.
In true ns2 fashion: close the thread, gg.
Thanks. (for convincing me to screw the rookies)
PS: Nice community, this was my last "contribution".
Don't quote things i never have said.
In fact i say don't change it for the fate of rookies, next to the other issues it would add.
You need to cooperate as team in ns2 and they have to learn this asap.
Taking away the responsibility from them to win as team because you give the commander the strength to end it alone won't help them in any way because later they will fail in other situations because of the lack of team cooperation.
If you teach rookies, explain them why they can't crush the marine base atm:
Mostly it's because the don't group up noone takes gorge and bile, they don't focus power node etc. .
You will notice soon that the rookies understand and try to do it better and mostly they finish it then with 4th or 5th wave.
Still this needs about 10 mins, but both sites of rookies can learn important things by this. And over all after that they will gain alot more experimence than they would have got from a 20 min game.
If they never run in this frustrating situation of a marine turtle castle they won't learn this things later.
And yes the 2h game was for both teams fun, ofc aliens didn't liked that they lost, but they agreed that we just worked better as team in lategame.
You came here to get our opinions about your idea, don't blame us if we don't like it.
Try to understand why we disagree with it, you'll see we really thought about this alot in the past.
Numbers are already going down anyway. From 3k players we're down to ~800 again soon anyway, so the rookies will be gone. Yeah, they only will have seen the worst of the game, but screw them! Right?
Way to go!
No, I came here to make a suggestion and get arguments on precisely that, not to get your non sequitur and off-topic opinions.
Please post a link to those discussions about ARCs not being able to shoot into CC rooms (or doing lots of AoE to allied buildings, another possibility...). Otherwise I have to assume you're talking out of your ..
PS: Can I get a refund on my donation?
Umbra + Spores + Bile + Xeno + Onos + Whips + Enzyme/Mucous = OP :P
@xnor, you say you "won" because you countered all points against it with your own (perfectly valid) points. As I said before, people are stupid and will keep arguing, even if they are obviously not right. It's not clear cut however, I'd like to think I "won" because some of my points were good too. But we will be judged only by time.
Don't be disheartened by a few dislikes on something you REALLY REALLY thought or still think was/is a good idea , you must just keep going (and ideally keep the amount of dislikes down).
I'm quite OC about my dislikes, so I've never going to make any really big comments for fear of "crowd disagree" disagree cause everyone else did.
As for aliens defending a last base: Here is an ad for SCC I'm not that bad of a com, but if you skip to 20 minutes you can see a lack of wining easily. But if you want, null the point by saying its a custom map... I don't care, why should anything challenge your precious argument @coolcowlick :P
Lastly, it mightn't even be that hard to try and mod, just because someone like me says he doesn't like it (and I really don't, sorry) doesn't mean you can't find a way to test it ingame. I can't help you there however, I do all my coding in Java :P
Aliens can use whips in hive to protect upgrades, or obviously can be used offensively too, so I don't think the two are unbalanced. If you consider that aliens are melee, close-range fighters, then it would make sense that if arcs were being used to counter infest/whip rushes, then gorges w/ bile gettin up close and personal would be the best solution. If your team cant coordinate enough to bile arcs then whip rush, or just bile pwr/ips all together, then poor team-play is the culprit, and not the ability for commaders to deploy arcs within range of command stations. If rines can hold you guys off for that long and come back to win, they earned it.
I have no idea how your post got promoted from me 0.0 ... maybe my fat fingers hit it when using my mobile? (incredibly easy to do, i've done it before)
Then look no further, I give to you the only reason you need : And we don't balance mechanics around poor teamplay, do we? That would be an extremely poor and inaccurate data set.
So why would we change a mechanic that removes a commander's strategic option/choice for something that
A) Can be countered with teamwork and a plethora of mechanics at any time (destroy the deployed arcs, duh)
C) Statistically isn't occurring enough to be considered an issue. Yes - happening once every 2,000 games is enough to ignore entirely. Even if it had no counters.. which it does. (this is not comparable to a crash, which has no counter)
:-O
Huh? You're the only one being snarky or remotely unpleasant in here?? ("Stomp rookies, k thx guys" etc)
People are honestly attempting to give you answers - you are just dismissing them as irrelevant or off topic or non sequitors ... even though many are not. (happening only 1 out of X games will definitely dictate whether we change a mechanic.. so that info is relevant and is definitely not a non sequitor, for just one example of your dismissals)
The worst interaction you've received from this community is disagreeing with your suggestion ... if that's all it takes for you to feel unwelcomed, you should have given a lot more consideration to posting in the forums labeled "Suggestions".
You can ink cloud faster then the arcs can do the first attack.
I think the main problem is that most alien commanders do a poor whip rush. Bad timing, and no shade.
Yes, I've heard it enough times now: screw the rookies.
You don't want a smooth experience for beginners and new players. You want to endure games, keep marines griefing and coming back from a game that should clearly be lost. I get it.
That's why people are frustrated with aliens, and stop playing the game, partly anyways. I've seen many people leave such long games which I've never seen before and probably will never see again.
I'm fine with this. With all the new rookies gone again, I don't need to tell people what to do anymore.
It's just the worst kind of "strategy" to build a community or increase the playerbase, but who cares.
Because of all the reasons I mentioned. Maybe you should read my posts.
Because it has little to no impact on competitive games, stops the frustration for new alien players, stops games that are already way to long to get prolonged, stops games that should already be lost/end to be turned around ....
You still don't get it, do you? I'm talking about bloody beginners, some of which don't even listen to the commander.
Big surprise: ARCs are mobile.
Also: Many not-so-pro comms I've seen build the factory in their base. If the ARCs roll out and they lose their second base, guess what, they have ARCs in base.
Other's sell stuff when they see they're losing and quickly build ARCs to defend the base. (the worst kind, the griefers)
Please point me to the statistics of long games that:
- may have been reset (happened to me)
- may have been reset by switching the map (happened to me too, but that was months ago)
- have properly ended
You don't even seem to understand the problem...
No, it's happening often on rookie servers where there's at least one non-rookie as comm on both sides.
I don't know why you repeat this so often, the message is clear: screw the rookies.
If anyone asks me why ns2 has so few players, that's the answer.
Here's what's happening:
Me: We should make 2+2 equal 4. (a cocky example but ignore the numbers..)
Others:
- It's always been 5.
- That doesn't happen often enough.
- Rookies just need to learn that it equals 5.
- You can go at it from other ways such as (5-3+1+7)/2.
- The math isn't wrong, the rookies are.
- Screw the rookies, because those are the only ones that get it that wrong (on the alien side only).
- ...
Btw, I was serious about closing my thread. I've picked up the attitude to screw the rookies. Problem solved.
PS: From over 3000 players peak we're already down to 1300 again. That means only ~500 bloody rookies are left. They should be gone soon too. By stomping them I'm helping the community keeping its elitism and getting rid of them. Yay!