RFK is currently being tested in the BT-Mod, tho the problem will not be solved by just putting RFK back in, as it just speeds up the first fades, which then will just play super defensive, unless the rest of the fade crew evolves.
I don`t see a problem in 1 Fade being out on the map, 2 is pretty easy to hunt down as well, but once 3 Fades hit the deck and know how to decently work together it becomes almost impossible for Marines to actually hold ground on the map, unless they turtle up in hordes of turrets, which then would require some actual teamplay by the Alien protecting that bilegorge.
I however think some kind of Upkeep is worthwhile testing as its more applicable for Pubs.
RFK and harvester cost changes won't fix the lifeform/weapon explosions by itself. That's basic math. It will just change the timing of when the explosion happens.
As I see it there are 2 ways to fix it, one would be to go back to the NS1 method; no alien comm, gorge drops structures. marine comm drops all marine equipment. This isn't going to happen, UWE wants to keep the alien commander.
The other method is the upkeep/cost inflation. Base it on the percentage of the team currently having the specific weapon/lifeform -> multiply the percentage with the cost -> add that result to the cost. All numbers shown on the buymenu, orignial cost, upkeep percentage, extra cost from upkeep, and the final cost.
The weapons and lifeforms will pop out graduately instead of entire teams popping it as soon as it's researched or they have the res for it.
This should bring another layer of strategy to the game, while getting completely rid of the weapon/lifeform explosions. Having to make decisions because of resources is one of the RTS elements that fits best into RTS/FPS games. "Who buys the first fade/shotgun(s)?". Right now everyone can basicly buy the equipment they want and that sadly makes the awnser to that question; "The majority of the team".
As another plus, unrelated to competetive play, this could encourage teamplay on public servers, as not everyone will be able to afford weapons/lifeforms at the same time. The clever choice would be to stick with the guy(s) that have the weapon(s)/lifeform(s) to keep them alive.
I think it'd be nice if there could be that old NS1 type mod, where before the game starts you had to choose your role that you would fill. 'Gorge/Rt, fade, lerk, Gorve/Hive, Onos, Skulk/RT" (ns1 example). And until each role was met the game would not start.
How does res for kills not change the timing? It fundamentally changes the timing by offering an incentive to kill marines, rather than biting nodes like a faggot
Yeah, RFK changes the timing of when 4 fades appear, like I said. But it doesn't change the fact that they all appear at the same time. At least not enough to make the needed difference. In ns1 this amount of fades was delayed by chamber/RT/hive drops, now the upkeep cost would delay them.
The res income from RFK will make it so the topfragger will have the oppertunity to get the first fade with no upkeep cost. Without RFK in my suggestion for a fix, everyone would reach 40(or 50) res at the same time and that would mean most of a team could be camping in evolve positions on publics. RFK encourages getting kills so you're certain you will reach the 40-50 res first so you don't have to pay upkeep cost(since 0% of the team currently has a fade).
If you get 1 PRes per kill, I think the earliest possible(very unlikely in most games) fade would be 4-5minutes. Haven't calculated it though. But it would just be a single fade and it would take more minutes before more fades appear as they would have to pay the extra upkeep cost. And one fade on the field is not a lost battle for marines, not at all.
pres for kills is just gonna kill any kind of strategy/buildorder stuff. I know some people think this is a shooter and nothing else. I agree that skill really makes or breaks anything you are trying to do so shooter first, but the strategy and grand scheme of things are important to me. Yes I haven't played NS1 enough, but if I wanted shooting only I would play Duck Hunt. Anyway, this is gonna make aggression only viable way of play. I always compared this game a bit to Starcraft, with turtling and defensive play a viable option, but looks like this is gonna change. Also how is upkeep or this gonna deal with fadeplosion? Is fadeplosion only gonna happen once? I am probably just ranting now, I will show myself out. Also nice elitism sublime, "smegmalord", really? A bit douchebagy, don't you think?
RFK basically guarantees that a decent Marine Team will have at least 2 SG s on the field AT ALL TIMES .. and i am guessing more like 3 to 4!
RFK is helping marines more than Aliens .. but it seems u ppl just concentrate on weakening Aliens instead of making rines stronger ... way to be BLIND (is that a wordplay .. i dont know XD )!
Oh and VindaLOO .. RFK will not take away any of the tactical element it will force Comms to make faster and smarter decisions from time to time !
And who enjoys a bunker game .. Marines are supposed to be aggressive!
EisTeeAT, I do, I enjoy defensive play, but I also enjoy aggressive play, I enjoy variety. I also never said tactical, I said strategy. With RFK, the only good strategy being the aggressive one, that is gonna get you most of the kills.
I am kind of against nerfing aliens, I can agree there, but I would like to see some variety. Not sure if RFK will do just that. I was thinking more on the note, that upgrades should define how you play and feel and play out differently. I am now thinking that I should play starcraft if I want that. Hmm, now that i think a bit more about it, maybe RFK will force at least the timing part of the strategy games, so half way there. I am at least willing to try.
Aggression will most likely lead to more kills . OVERALL !
As Marine being aggressive should mean .. u slowly push to an rt position ur ppl and ONE person shoots the RT others will kill the skulks coming .. so it is a defense at your offensive position .. there you go both sides all in one 8) !
Should be fun XD !
But the more i think about it i get the feeling that the game is sort of fundamentally BROKEN.
And that is because of the one additional "TechPoint" ... Aliens on 3 hives is GG right? ... so YOU FORCE Marines to have 3 PG s up lategame .. and u dont even give them Motion Tracking? ... It is so easy to organize a rush as aliens and Marines cant even see that coming! And unless maarines only sit at all their phasegates basically giving aliens all the rts they could ever need EVERY rush will be succesful cause Marines just cant react fast enough !
Equally, being aggressive risks dying and feeding the enemy. You might feel like it would be better to bait RTs to kill skulks if you aren't the best aimer, or you could rambo in with a shotgun and try to kill everything.
RFK worked pretty well in NS1 and harmonized with the pres only on aliens and tres only marines. But on public it created problems since you tended to yell at your teammates for stupidly suiciding (rookies running into marines over and over) and feed them res. Same would happen in NS2, so I am not sure if this fits well for public. For competitive though, it is really good. You can use teamwork as in NS1 to target a kill for a certain player who needs it most (skulk who last his fade for example, or player who should go lerk/fade first) while the others go in first, bait and tank bullets for him etc.
Ofc you'd need to decrease res gain per tick again but that should find a good number within 2-3 changes of testing.
But again, RFK isn't a fadeplosion fix, the only fadeplosion fix is to force aliens to use other lifeforms more and make it invalid to just have 4-5 players straight up save for it. (Every other change just delays them or make them pop in a 1-2 min time spread which would still be pretty much the same.)
That was my intention behind buffing marine early game on summer cup (already saw many teams use at least 1 more gorge early game). And since we are stuck with the economy model of 2 commanders you'll have to force aliens use 1-2 gorges besides commander and 1-2 lerks early/mid game and/or make it valuable to save for 1 onos. With only about 2 to max. 3 fades out in the field, the gameplay can be more interesting again.
I would rather like to see it work like it was in ns1 combat. If you want to use skulk upgrades (one time spend) you get somewhat later fade. If you want really fast fade, you don't get to use any upgrades.
But I agree alien early game is a bit too strong since there is no real need to use lerk(s).
Should try and think about and try and change to building limit around so that it includes lifeforms and weapons.
When the game starts aliens would have say 50 limit, with whips shifts crags shades all costing 10, lerks could cost 15 and fades could cost 20, and when you increase the biomass you would get say another 15 points per level, and when when the new hive drops that increase your limit by another 40 for 2nd hive and then 30 for 3rd hive while biomass still increases at the same rate. There for aliens it would stop the lifeform's popin up 4-5 fades and would require alot more teamwork other than "you 4 save for fades"
For marines it would be pretty much the same, they start at 50, armory would cost 10 points, PG's would cost 5, and keep the same cost for the other buildings, Shotguns could cost 20 flamers 25 and same with GLs, marines could increase there point limit by getting a 2nd CC and this could incrase it by 40 and every time they get weapon upgrades this would also increase by another 10 - 15 - 20
SO not only would this put more into the game but also limits how many lifeforms are on the field and how many weapons at certain times.
The idea may seem quite nice.. but if you think it through all u do is to trim the game towards skill instead of tactics.
You will force Teams to never use all their resources because there is a limit ... this means only the best players should be Fading, JP ing or whatever and the superior Team which maybe could have a Team of 5 fades cause the other team just faild has to doodle around with 3 and the game is dragged out.
If a Team is good enough to get everything they need to end this then let em get it.
Or if a Team is bad enough to give their opponent all the res they need .. well they deserve to be stomped by 5 fades!
limits are never a good thing to solve things
better would be an opportunity to use the personal res elsewhere
as best in situations where it is needed to help the team ect
for example
make a gorge crucial again
make an lerk crucial
give an way to spend pres so the team profits from it and if nobody does it they notice it hard cause there is an downside what they have to exchange with mad skills or a lot of winning on engangments.
@maxamus I don't think it's a great idea to put a hard limit on lifeforms and weapons. This example would make the game very different from 6v6 to 12v12 as only a specific number of people can go fade/get a shotgun no matter how many players are on the team.
I think my idea of a upkeep cost is better, especially in this regard. Since the upkeep percentage is based on 'percentage of the team having a specific weapon/lifeform', so it's scales with player numbers.
I wrote up my entire idea in this google document if you're curious. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LFeQFN_C7BXej1eAysCOdIQaUN-RzSsd-CS93VYvRH8
I really don't like this idea. The cost should stay the same. I don't think delaying the fades/sgs using their cost is the right idea. I can see unwanted situations :
- you have to wait for the lost sg somewhere on the map to buy a new one because else it cost more pres
- you have to buy in the right order if different players have different pres (example, marine has 20 and the other 25, the one with 25 has to wait for the guy who has 20 to buy the sg first)
- imagine the above with fades, that would hurt.
- you can't shotgun rush or use multiple ealry sgs
There is probably more that I can't think of.
I had an idea during BT, wich I think was a good one that prevented the tech explosion, while making the transition between early to mid/late game smoother and would still let the team with the advantage tech faster and still give a chance to the other one.
this is a copy paste from the BT thread on ns2 forums (cba to rewrite, the idea is there):
So what I think marines need is the ability to have sgs right from the start. Only an armory, no research needed. Now obviously the problem is, because of pres, that every marine could get one. My idea to prevent that would be some kind of "cooldowns" and "stock" for sgs. When you drop an armory, it would have X sgs stocked, so marines could only get X sgs at start. Then, the numbers of sgs available would rise every Y seconds, and/or the comm could add one instantly for Z res. Multiples armory could share the stock and share the cd and/or reduce the cd, or have 2 differents stocks. The armory could also become a target of choice for base rush, if you decide to reset the sg stock if the last armory dies.
This would prevent the SG explosion, wich I think is really annoying, while still allowing the use of early sgs, and depending on the X/Y/Z numbers not impact mid/late game too much.
Replace "sg" with "fade" and "armory" with "hive" for the fade explosion.
Now of course those X/Y/Z numbers could be hard to determine, but if chosen well, we would get rid of tech explosion and really smoothen the game.
I don't like upkeep costs or other artificial limits / more hidden modifiers. The game should be balanced around the fact that a team WANTS the lifeform diversion themselves. In NS1 you couldn't go 4 fades because you needed gorges to drop RTs/chambers/hive. In NS2 eco model you need to find another reason for alien players to go gorge/lerk instead of all save for fade. One reason could be that you desperately need 2-3 gorges and 1-2 lerks to survive or saving for 1 onos is actually a rewarding strat.
@kingyo
I was THIS close to remove SG research and make it insta free like welders. And I still think I should have just done it. I am not scared of the possibility to insta buy 5 SGs - that's such an commitment by marines that it comes with a heavy risk. The difference to a SG rush on 251 is basically only 30 tres and about 5-10 seconds (power build 2 armories). Lose all those SGs and you have a terrible stand. Having 1-2 SGs constantly on the field (which also means get 1 SG right from start) is kinda the way I imagine marines ought to be played instead of first 6-10 minutes LMG only into 3-5 constant SGs after fades pop. Which again, is NS1 mindset.
I agree, so let's ask ourselves what would make you go other lifeforms, from player pov and from com/team perspective? I cannot imagine anything at this moment. On marines side, isn't the techploison just consequence of techroute you choose, like jetpacks/exos? Aren't the resource in first minutes more important than the resources later game, meaning shotguns early can kill your pres and a slow down a bit your upgrades, for ex. Are we even concerned with marine side, i thought that just fadeplosion is the big problem? Maybe lower the starting resources, would that lead to more devastating rushes in the beginning. Confusing when you try to push here and the balance pulls something elsewhere. :)
