Messages

21

General / Beta 6 changelog

« on: December 24, 2004, 06:23:33 AM »

Innate regen is in itself okay, but the DC hasn't been an interesting chamber since god knows when anyway. I'd prefer an extra percent or so on Gorge heal together with the infamous "focus healspray" - that way we would skirt boosting the most powerful chamber, the MC.

And why in the world the 30% visibility thing would be necessary I don't know - cloaking is already a mighty nasty upgrade. It might even work okay earlygame, but in a midgame scenario with MC/SC its just another in a long, long string of 2 Hive advantages, along with double the spawn, teleportation, leap, bilebomb, umbra, metabolise, stomp and the armor bonus.

The only really dramatic imbalance is midgame marine balance - they're fairly pathetic, and there is about one strategy with a high rate of success, thats prototeching it up. They're already spending big to do that, together with fielding HMGs and welders, a phasegate, siege equipment and medpacks (until the appropriate prototech is available, meds cost quite a tad). Now lets have sieges do no splashdamage, and make them instantly only half as effective - sounds like a winner to me.


@Ben:
Wait, the PTs played combat and thought the aliens needed boosting? Wowzers good sirs, thats just an impressive failure of reasoning.

22

General / Beta 6 changelog

« on: December 23, 2004, 11:43:59 PM »

And thats why I'm asking, whats the boost for? Its already an amazingly powerful chamber, as is MC. Free upgrades seems sensible and fun, but 2% regen per tick, the 30% visibility at any speed, siegenerf and SoF-effect for SC is a bit over the top unless marines start shooting deathrays out their eyes.

Haha X-S-Z I told you there will be alot of these Marine Lovers.

Now to explain "why".

First off Marines have it as easy as it can get in b5. You will, repeat WILL kill at least 2-5 skulks before you die. Your shotguns own everything and cost a mere 10 res. You lack teamwork in some games yet still dominate the field unless Aliens use a helluv alot of teamwork which doesn't make much sense at all.

the 2% regen is to encourage other chambers besides DC's. the Sensory "boost" is for encouraging SC first.

Now you Marines will have something else comming your way when you expect to go and start "0Wnz0R1nG" Skulks, NS is going to become more of a "fun" game rather than a "Hey Pa, gimme dat shotty and we can g0 huntin' skulks n Gorgies YEEE HAWWW"
Every build since 2.1 has benefitted the Marines all the way. Now it's time for the Aliens to shine and stand a chance in most PUB games

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I agree with you compleatly, NS has been biased against skulks for a while now.  But to say NS has been biased against aliens is a slight, fades carry the alien team, not skulks.  I love these modifications, but I think at some point the general alien buffs need to come with some kind of nerf to the high skill fade.

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Only DC skulks do really suck to a significant degree, and they still only fight a slight uphill battle for between 2 and 6 minutes (depending on wether you get earlylerks, fades and/or lose nodes in under 90 seconds). Nobody is forcing people to use the weakest chamber, thats their choice to make.

Complaining that the alternatives to defense chambers required "too much teamwork" is the worst argument I've seen to date. One of the cornerstones of NS gameplay is team-reliance anyway - sure thats one of the reasons its tough to run an NS pub, but switching the problem over from one side to another isn't going to be much of a drastic improvement. However competitive balance is fairly nice right now, if not a tad alien-biased especially towards midgame (and half these boosts are powerful midgame boosts as well).

And nerfing the Fade - he is already not a very powerful singular unit. His main roles are to create confusion and finish off stragglers or spored targets - in cases where the opposition is worth their salt. If there are no Skulks around to create confusion, and/or Lerks to create an opening for the Fade, he's worthless. This goes hand in hand with the same complaint though, that you could say it requires too much teamwork and aim to survive fades with ease - but the bit of NS that is enjoyable is these instances of "too much" teamwork, and not those of predetermined hardcounter balance (OLO NO PING SENSORY PWNS JOO, FUN++).

But I'm crazy anyway, and my team only sports a 6:1 alien-favoring tiestreak.

23

General / Beta 6 changelog

« on: December 18, 2004, 03:57:13 AM »

Aliens are hit and run period regardless of the chamber.  Sensory in b6 is actually the most offensive chamber set because of the incredible damage focus and cloaking give.  Focus hive2 fades are probably the most powerful alien weapon behind a focus hive3 fade, so I don't what you're talking about when you say it won't give it a boost.  Nothing stops a Focus fade besides killing it, nothing besides HA even slows it down.  Combine leap focus skulks and you have some problems.

And thats why I'm asking, whats the boost for? Its already an amazingly powerful chamber, as is MC. Free upgrades seems sensible and fun, but 2% regen per tick, the 30% visibility at any speed, siegenerf and SoF-effect for SC is a bit over the top unless marines start shooting deathrays out their eyes.

24

General / Beta 6 changelog

« on: December 17, 2004, 05:02:24 PM »

What numbers do you want to crunch? I could post 800 megabytes worth (zipped) of  MC/SC match demos, or I could try to convince you that there is nothing MC can't do better that DC can, or that sensory is easily powerful enough to make a round a cakewalk to win.

The defense chamber in B5 is the least attractive, but needs the least cooperation between teammates. Both Movement and Sensory easily overpower Defense, especially in a coordinated 6v6 setting. Outside of scrims/matches DCs are the most popular because of their simplicity, but that doesn't mean anything needs changing about them.

25

General / Beta 6 changelog

« on: December 17, 2004, 03:08:30 PM »

SMD will end up being the default order, and MSD will happen almost as often. Sensory is ridiculously powerful, it took a while to make it not overpowered so much so that aliens were unstoppable with it.

Whats the point though? The chambers are on equal footing in B5, this changelog just throws DCs into the trashcan and aliens into easymode.

26

Off Topic / World Of Warcraft Release!

« on: December 11, 2004, 02:43:59 AM »

Flying Buttresses.

27

Off Topic / Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

« on: December 10, 2004, 05:03:51 AM »

Hey, my genes just transferred my maladjusted fashion sense. Its a christmas miracle.

28

Off Topic / N64 vs GameCube

« on: December 10, 2004, 04:57:34 AM »

Oh sweetness, Forsaken multiplayer. Only ever got the PC demo, but infected an entire LAN with it for hours on end. Just that much highly condensed awesome in it.

Guns. Hoverbikes. Free 3 dimensional combat. Nuff said.

29

General / REQUIRED READING FOR PLAYERS

« on: December 09, 2004, 02:10:20 PM »

Its an advertising issue. Boo hoo if its part of anyone's tag. I don't think anyone can realistically construct an argument that would allow their tag to break the rules. I mean, I could go out tomorrow and start the *insert profanity here* clan and then throw a fit when I get banned from LM for obscenity in my tag. Tags don't mean that rules selectively apply. Its a big step away from naming everyone NSplayer by the way. It just means no adverts. Other people have adjusted by dropping the # sign, its not killing anyone to remove it. The rules say no adverts, so what the problem? You can't really complain about being punished for rule breaking.. its a ridiculous concept.

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He said he changed it to "POUNDcri.nner", so he did in fact remove the poundsign. He's complaining about not being allowed to follow the rules with the slightest shred of humour.

30

General / REQUIRED READING FOR PLAYERS

« on: December 03, 2004, 03:30:57 AM »

Quan, lets look at a pistol script.

It allows you to fire 3(or more) shots from your pistol, at a rate that is faster then MOST PEOPLE can manage.  When most people try and fire a pistol like that they A.Can't fire that fast and B.They lose accuracy from the mouse jumping

The pistol script automates this.  I'd love to see how you can argue that a pistol script doesn't give you some advantage.  Yes, some people can do it without a script at all.  But those who can't can use the pistol script and get the exact same effects.

The only workable pistol script fires once upon depressing your firekey, and once on releasing, but only if you don't overshoot the RoF. For some reason it doesn't work either if you wait too long.

Why is it like this? Because the Half-Life scripting language was designed just as an extension of your keyboard, and intentionally made to not be able to macro complex actions (and when it attempts - like blink/swipe, those scripts are clumsy and useless). To make that possible without removing all freedom, they made the wait; queue - if you queue up too many waits, you can't give new input until they've all expired. So if you tried a 3-5 or even a 10shot pistolscript, you would be stuck or wiggling uncontrollably on the ground upon firing - even if your gun was empty. This is why _special is a big deal, because it circumvents wait; .

By the way, there is a _special metamod blocker, so mp_blockscripts 0 doesn't have to mean special_ would be unlocked.

31

General / :O

« on: December 02, 2004, 02:14:33 PM »

Time to get a new telephone number, mister Freeman.