Okay, I've just seen too much of this, so as a developer and someone who's probably logged well over a thousand hours in NS1, I'm going to do the rebalance manifesto that's no doubt been done a thousand times before.
Regail me with how many times you've seen this:
• Aliens have 80% resource control for 90% of the game.
• Aliens have three hives, maximum biomass, and full upgrades.
• Aliens lose.
And don't get me wrong, I love epic turtles, but I have to sleep, and I just can't bring myself to leave epic turtles... In the past two weeks, I have seen seven (7) games, where an epic marine turtle has lasted two hours, ending in terminal server crash (for some reason the server always dies around the 2 hour mark, and fails to restart.) In at least half of those games, the turtles began before the marines even had exo's. You can't help but laugh at how broken that is when the aliens can pull no such thing. (And the fact that I've spent 14 hours maintaining or failing to break marine turtles since 250.)
That all being said...
When the aliens have three hives and full upgrades, and the marines are down to one com chair, the marines should lose in short order, no if ands or buts. The aliens should have no trouble overrunning and cracking the base when the marines have failed this badly.
Suggestions:
• Exo's with anything but railguns should require 2 command chairs.
- Exo's with railguns are good in the hands of an elite, but they don't stop upgraded Onos - and you shouldn't be able to stop an upgraded Onos with one command chair.
• Grenade Launchers should require 2 command chairs. (Or be much weaker with only 1)
- Grenade launcher spam is the #1 cause of epic turtles.
• The robotics factory needs a rim around its base so Gorges can jump over it, and/or have its size considerably reduced, and/or its cost raised by 5-10 res, and/or require two command chairs.
• If *either* side has +70% res control, the res rate needs to slowly ramp up to the degree where they have effectively limitless res within 10 minutes, and can break the opposing team in short order.
No end game mechanic should ever be nerfed, or said end game mechanic will not end the game. Similarly, end game mechanics should not appear before the end game has been reached.
• Vortex needs to last at least twice as long to give it more than entertainment value.
• Stomp could use a boost.
• Xenocide could use a boost. (Remember odds are, in a good game, this is vs. Armor 3)
• Biomass should count extra on higher life forms beyond level 6.
• And with the Exo requirements above, said Exo's will be an end game mechanic, instead of a balance breaking epic come back that only one side can pull.
And something we learned in NS1 but apparently forgot:
• Phantom (Cloaking) needs to provide 100% invisibility when standing still at level 3. Anyone who's played this game more than a week has setup their graphics settings to where Phantom is useless, save for the silence effect. The current "slightly/plainly" visible effect should only apply when crawling. The time you waste sitting still and waiting is penalty enough.
Another thing we learned in NS1, and is probably key to this whole problem, and has also no doubt been said over and over again, yet ignored: BALANCE TESTS ARE ONLY PERFORMED BY ELITE PLAYERS. What balances well for elites, does not necessarily translate well for casuals, and the majority of your client population, at the moment, are casuals... (And a great many of us will never enter the ranks of the elite, regardless of hours played.)
I'm sure 250 is perfectly balanced for elites, because it was tested by them, and thus balanced for them. What we did in NS1, to compensate for this discrepancy, is introduce tournament mode, which changed the balance structure slightly. Rookie Friendly flagged servers should be balanced with casuals in mind (stronger aliens), and regular servers should favor the elite (nerfed aliens).
...And yes, much like in NS1, one elite Fade can carry the whole team to victory - but that, as in NS1, is the result of the Fade just being too damn hard to hit, and again, only applies to elite games (or Rookie games being trolled by elite players).
Also, I strongly suggest setting up a central statistic tracker that covers all servers. I saw eight consecutive alien losses on the Rookie servers (Ibis specifically) the day before 250 came out, and couldn't believe what I saw the next day.
And that all being said...
This is a wonderful adaptation and continuation of the original game. It's beautifully rendered, and just fantastic in so many ways I can't hardly begin to describe. I've put off migrating from NS1 to NS2 for the longest time, because I knew I'd just get addicted all over again. So don't take this criticism harshly. This is just yet another beg thread from the casual pool*. Don't forget us!
* (Seems no matter how many hours I log in one of these games, my actual skill set never advances beyond moderate - probably cuz I r old.)
Regail me with how many times you've seen this:
• Aliens have 80% resource control for 90% of the game.
• Aliens have three hives, maximum biomass, and full upgrades.
• Aliens lose.
And don't get me wrong, I love epic turtles, but I have to sleep, and I just can't bring myself to leave epic turtles... In the past two weeks, I have seen seven (7) games, where an epic marine turtle has lasted two hours, ending in terminal server crash (for some reason the server always dies around the 2 hour mark, and fails to restart.) In at least half of those games, the turtles began before the marines even had exo's. You can't help but laugh at how broken that is when the aliens can pull no such thing. (And the fact that I've spent 14 hours maintaining or failing to break marine turtles since 250.)
That all being said...
When the aliens have three hives and full upgrades, and the marines are down to one com chair, the marines should lose in short order, no if ands or buts. The aliens should have no trouble overrunning and cracking the base when the marines have failed this badly.
Suggestions:
• Exo's with anything but railguns should require 2 command chairs.
- Exo's with railguns are good in the hands of an elite, but they don't stop upgraded Onos - and you shouldn't be able to stop an upgraded Onos with one command chair.
• Grenade Launchers should require 2 command chairs. (Or be much weaker with only 1)
- Grenade launcher spam is the #1 cause of epic turtles.
• The robotics factory needs a rim around its base so Gorges can jump over it, and/or have its size considerably reduced, and/or its cost raised by 5-10 res, and/or require two command chairs.
• If *either* side has +70% res control, the res rate needs to slowly ramp up to the degree where they have effectively limitless res within 10 minutes, and can break the opposing team in short order.
No end game mechanic should ever be nerfed, or said end game mechanic will not end the game. Similarly, end game mechanics should not appear before the end game has been reached.
• Vortex needs to last at least twice as long to give it more than entertainment value.
• Stomp could use a boost.
• Xenocide could use a boost. (Remember odds are, in a good game, this is vs. Armor 3)
• Biomass should count extra on higher life forms beyond level 6.
• And with the Exo requirements above, said Exo's will be an end game mechanic, instead of a balance breaking epic come back that only one side can pull.
And something we learned in NS1 but apparently forgot:
• Phantom (Cloaking) needs to provide 100% invisibility when standing still at level 3. Anyone who's played this game more than a week has setup their graphics settings to where Phantom is useless, save for the silence effect. The current "slightly/plainly" visible effect should only apply when crawling. The time you waste sitting still and waiting is penalty enough.
Another thing we learned in NS1, and is probably key to this whole problem, and has also no doubt been said over and over again, yet ignored: BALANCE TESTS ARE ONLY PERFORMED BY ELITE PLAYERS. What balances well for elites, does not necessarily translate well for casuals, and the majority of your client population, at the moment, are casuals... (And a great many of us will never enter the ranks of the elite, regardless of hours played.)
I'm sure 250 is perfectly balanced for elites, because it was tested by them, and thus balanced for them. What we did in NS1, to compensate for this discrepancy, is introduce tournament mode, which changed the balance structure slightly. Rookie Friendly flagged servers should be balanced with casuals in mind (stronger aliens), and regular servers should favor the elite (nerfed aliens).
...And yes, much like in NS1, one elite Fade can carry the whole team to victory - but that, as in NS1, is the result of the Fade just being too damn hard to hit, and again, only applies to elite games (or Rookie games being trolled by elite players).
Also, I strongly suggest setting up a central statistic tracker that covers all servers. I saw eight consecutive alien losses on the Rookie servers (Ibis specifically) the day before 250 came out, and couldn't believe what I saw the next day.
And that all being said...
This is a wonderful adaptation and continuation of the original game. It's beautifully rendered, and just fantastic in so many ways I can't hardly begin to describe. I've put off migrating from NS1 to NS2 for the longest time, because I knew I'd just get addicted all over again. So don't take this criticism harshly. This is just yet another beg thread from the casual pool*. Don't forget us!
* (Seems no matter how many hours I log in one of these games, my actual skill set never advances beyond moderate - probably cuz I r old.)