the problem

[TheAdj]

There are less drastic ways of restoring balance to the forc.. erhm, game :cool:

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I'm sorry tanke, but the utter lack of info coming from the dev team has gone far past just pissing me off. As NS is the only game I play, the only reason I have ever thought of quitting (and currently) is the complete silence of the dev team as to what's being done. I understand how secrets are good for PR, but when there's NOTHING about what is being done, what trends the dev team is trying to fix, and any updates of what's happening, then it's just plain stupid. The consti's get nothing, and without being an absolute forumite there is no way of even hearing the smallest tidbit of info...

With that said, there is a problem. I cant' say what it is. I do know my killscore has gone to pot, and as far as I can tell, I AM shooting the other player. I cannot afford to make ANY mistakes as comm, and even when I don't, we still lose ALOT. The dev team AFAIK doesn't really care to tell us not only what the patch will have, but not even what problems they are trying to fix. They don't tell us if they think aliens are overpowered early game, or if marines aren't getting enough tech for the res and time involved, or ANYTHING. So, HD, great explanation, but as far as I am concerned, no one will actually read or respond to it on NS.com that will give you any information. The next release will once again come out and we'll feel like the development team was in a vacuum for the last few months.

Tanke, I'm sorry to vent this on you, but you're group really needs to let us know a little bit more about the current development. At the very least, what is being addressed.

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Don't you know rad, certain developers are the ****, and know exactly how to fix NS, they don't need puny mortals like us telling them something is wrong.

I pointed out the lack of listening and providing feedback to players (namely competitive, but I guess general public as well), and was promptly told I was off-base and using "rhetoric and destructive argumentation", and that I had to "prove my worth" before I would be listened to by a certain developer that is a LM community member.  Needless to say certain developers do not give a flying **** what you think, and you waste your time trying to talk to them in any fashion.

[Goldy]

With FF aliens always get MC because of being able to shoot their unbuilt hive. Then when the marines manage to actually get near one, every single alien shows up with the MC's. Many a pg is overwhelmed that way. Even with a LOT of sieges the aliens usually save the hive because they overwhelm the marines, and have gorge(s) healing the hive as it gets sieged. This isn't so much a problem, it's good teamwork.. except for aliens hitting an unbuilt hive, which is extremely lame.

It depends a lot on the server. Some servers marines always win because all of the good people play marine. Here aliens win because the alien teams are generally better and work as a team. Being a marine generally means waiting to lose.

LM needs better marine teams and less people who are awesome at fade whoring for it all the time. Of course that doesn't mean it's bad to try hard as an alien.. just not every round, especially not if the marines are unskilled. I lean towards not fading unless I think it's needed. Though sometimes I just feel like killing, especially after sitting through a boring loss as a marine.

[Mr.Bill]

Ive actually sorta noticed that aliens dont really try that hard to lock down hives before hand anymore, If you hear mc's first, you can almost be sertain that unless the marines are doing nothing, your going to mc rush that second hive, and third. I don't think aliens should be THAT dependent on MCs, or use mcs to counter THAT Much. (since Mcs counter 2 hive lockdowns, but once you get that second hive its game over for marines for sure practically)

[Malevolent]

I don't feel like getting into this too much, but this could be the problem:

Click Me

If the unbalance is pissing you off that much, I think it would be smart to try it.

[Diablus]

ita A) the 30 second amazingly good lerk which tends to be almost impossible to kill even with shotguns which leads to the B) 2 - 4 minute unstoppable fade which leads to C)marines Lose.

If anything its the Aliens + the amazing skill power + missboxes.

Also Marines need to learn that 3.0 skulks get the free upgrades, a celerity bunnyhopping skulk can take out 2-3 Marines in a group at times >_<

you cant balance the players, you cant nerf the Alien lifeforms because that "l33t" player isnt there in every game.

I just say we lynch the skilled players

[pardzh]

If anything its the Aliens + the amazing skill power + missboxes.

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Bolded for effect. Skulks now have an invisible kevlar helmet.

[holy_devil]

If anything its the Aliens + the amazing skill power + missboxes.

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Bolded for effect. Skulks now have an invisible kevlar helmet.

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you're implying that the hits register then. which they don't. missboxes ftw!

[Necrosis]

Yes, I say we should amputate leet players arms.

[lolfighter]

[...]
The issue is present in other places other than LM, obviously, but here it's just exceptionally bad because of the above reasons. The thing is, you cannot balance for incompetance, if commanders were able to make huge mistakes like they are now and still win, then in a competitive enviroment marines will absolutely dominate.

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Not to be snide, but if LM sucks so much compared to other servers, why do you still play here? Please don't see this is an attack, it's an honest question. You gotta admit it doesn't seem logical to play on a sucky server when you know better places to go.

[SwiftSpear]

[...]
The issue is present in other places other than LM, obviously, but here it's just exceptionally bad because of the above reasons. The thing is, you cannot balance for incompetance, if commanders were able to make huge mistakes like they are now and still win, then in a competitive enviroment marines will absolutely dominate.

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Not to be snide, but if LM sucks so much compared to other servers, why do you still play here? Please don't see this is an attack, it's an honest question. You gotta admit it doesn't seem logical to play on a sucky server when you know better places to go.

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Because they don't ban people for rampant teamkilling on the vet server.

[edit] and maby I missed the point, but marines are NOT dominating in a compeditive environment.  A/A ties are an 80% occurance these days.

[Mr.Ben]

EDIT: Yes marines aren't dominating, but is the ratio as bad as it is here? No. It's very map specific but there are ways of winning provided your commander is quick on the meds and your marines are able to hit a barn door with a GL. It's not easy, but you NEED a commander making the right decisions, a commander not getting A1 till 5 minutes is a guarenteed way to lose and that is happening 8/10 on LM.

From my experience on LM a few things are guarenteed to happen with aliens:

You're going to do MC, you're going to have an early lerk (hi 2 of . You don't counter this by doing PGs first or farting around with some other weird tangent of teching. You counter this by early a1, welders and a shotgun in the hands of the best marine on the team. It's not difficult on this server to go alien and win and it's not just because of the inbalance. Marines NEED a good commander. Marines NEED at least 1 good marine. All the aliens need to do is have anything resembling a competant public player and you win.

I play on LM because i like the challenge, sometimes it's not particulary good fun but what the hey. My team is in CAL now and we want to do well (hi CAL delta playoffs), i have to get used to having half my bullets not register and learn to adjust my playstyle for that ping.

[SwiftSpear]

I like the challenge.

EDIT: Yes marines aren't dominating, but is the ratio as bad as it is here? No. It's very map specific but there are ways of winning provided your commander is quick on the meds and your marines are able to hit a barn door with a GL. It's not easy, but you NEED a commander making the right decisions, a commander not getting A1 till 5 minutes is a guarenteed way to lose and that is happening 8/10 on LM.

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Well I've won my last 4 out of 6 games comming on hera... Last time I checked the marines W/L ratios for hera were 10/86 (as of april 4th) so evidently you aren't entirely wrong.  Either that or I am a terrible comm and you are entirely wrong.

[Mr.Ben]

If you want to command and win there are a few ways of doing it:

1 - B5 style, generally best for a map like eclipse of marine where there is still some marine bias. Early a1, early PG, maybe throw some HMGs in and shotgun down/deny second hive with a PG in the middle.

2 - A JP rush, best suited for a map like tanith or hera where there are a lot of 'safe' RTs to cap regardless of hive. Do the AA first, arms lab, a1, w1. Spend the whole match holding your RTs though of course if you're dominating feel free to pressure theirs but at  all costs keep yours up. As soon as JPs are done (5 minutes) drop 4, 3 jp shotguns, 1 jp HMG and take down the building hive. Use the HMG to cover vs the lifeforms.

3 - Do either of those strategies and have things go horribly wrong. Aliens get two hives but you place a PG in the hive they don't have. Use your JPs to hold your RTs and maybe JP shotgun down any of theirs. Keep holding RTs till you can afford a HA train and move out to a siege and get the hive down.

Proto tech is still superior to most, even two hive aliens. It's just a matter of getting it into the field. Provided you can keep the aliens on one hive then any proto tech marines can easily dominate. My clan reguraly uses the JP strategy on ns_tanith. Within a minute aliens can go from having the game in the bag to have 1 hive, 1 RT and 0 chambers, that is how effective jetpacks are and that is no exageration.

www.nude-soiree.net/frenchmixtanithmarine.zip This demo from our commanders point of view displays it in action quite nicely though olol he sucked on the meds during that base rush :S

[SwiftSpear]

If you want to command and win there are a few ways of doing it:

1 - B5 style, generally best for a map like eclipse of marine where there is still some marine bias. Early a1, early PG, maybe throw some HMGs in and shotgun down/deny second hive with a PG in the middle.

2 - A JP rush, best suited for a map like tanith or hera where there are a lot of 'safe' RTs to cap regardless of hive. Do the AA first, arms lab, a1, w1. Spend the whole match holding your RTs though of course if you're dominating feel free to pressure theirs but at  all costs keep yours up. As soon as JPs are done (5 minutes) drop 4, 3 jp shotguns, 1 jp HMG and take down the building hive. Use the HMG to cover vs the lifeforms.

3 - Do either of those strategies and have things go horribly wrong. Aliens get two hives but you place a PG in the hive they don't have. Use your JPs to hold your RTs and maybe JP shotgun down any of theirs. Keep holding RTs till you can afford a HA train and move out to a siege and get the hive down.

Proto tech is still superior to most, even two hive aliens. It's just a matter of getting it into the field. Provided you can keep the aliens on one hive then any proto tech marines can easily dominate. My clan reguraly uses the JP strategy on ns_tanith. Within a minute aliens can go from having the game in the bag to have 1 hive, 1 RT and 0 chambers, that is how effective jetpacks are and that is no exageration.

www.nude-soiree.net/frenchmixtanithmarine.zip This demo from our commanders point of view displays it in action quite nicely though olol he sucked on the meds during that base rush :S

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Hera has this funny architexture where it isn't really that huge a map, but it still takes forever to get anywhere.  Being that it takes forever to get anywhere that should mean that every node is practically impossible to hold.  Here is where our friend the electric strat comes in.  Just get all your marines to head in the opposite direction of the hive and cap everything up as fast as possible.  This usually means the aliens ignoring the far side hive, even if they went movement first.  Phase 2 is to get phase and get all your marines in some location where they can start taking down alien nodes (which the aliens don't like much, but can't do alot about until you either get too close to thier hive or they get hive two up.  After this the key locations to hold are processing and/or that little dinky node between archiving and data core that is like impossible to assult as aliens.  PGs go in either of these locations, and you seige down data from processing, be it the original hive or the new fancy going up hive.  After that all you have to do is hold your 2 hive lockdown and electrify any node on the map you missed before (I usually don't worry about cargo or hera and only electrify farther out nodes).  Hold everything and HA or JP rush thier last hive to death.  Beacons and PG are your best friends here.

[Dead_Meat]

Can the marine starting res be changed by a server side variable?
if so could more balance be obtained by increasing the rine starting res to lik 150?

[SlickWill]

Dead Meat, that is a pretty good idea...best one so far, imo.

[2_of_8]

Well... there's mp_team1damagepercent. Although changing it will adversely affect # of bites/bullets/etc

[Niteowl]

rad4Christ,Apr 23 2005, 08:59 AM]I cannot afford to make ANY mistakes as comm, and even when I don't, we still lose ALOT.

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Quoted for Hoots! i mean, truth!

Meaning I feel the same way when I comm.

[^Zunni^]

Hi folks....

Just thought I'd waddle in and drop my 2 cents on this thread, hopefully clearing up a few misconceptions on the way...

Starting with the easy stuff..

Hitboxes are not easy to fix.. want proof? We had something that "worked" in B5, as well as B6/3.0 yet PT'ing proved that they didn't work correctly or there were fatal flaws in them. So for each release we've had a solution that simply didn't hold up.

In 3.1 we are again working on some hitbox related things in an attempt to fix them for good. So far the feedback has been positive but who knows what further testing will find.

Which leads nicely in Rad's post... A) if you have questions, ask.. Someone wanted to know about HLTV in 3.1 on the NS forums (http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=92378) and while I can't say for 100% certain, it's clear we are aware of the issues and are deciding where along the fix time-line they fit.
B) Often features/balance tweaks look completely different when they are designed vs. when they are released (cloaking went through at least 10 permutations), and we've made the decision not to get people's hopes up only to have them dashed (you all saw what happened when we were unable to keep the fixed Hitboxes in, mass confusion where people didn't understand/wouldn't understand). So it's a decision we've made to not release the details of what's being included until things are more finalized..

But I'm certainly not opposed to saying this release (3.1) will have some new movement techniques, some fixes to long time pains, some usability fixes and some other things as well.  But also understand we are in the middle of writing this code, so what is on our scope list may change based on time/issues that appear etc..

As bits are completed, and added to the base code for good, we begin deciding how we want to handle PR and releasing of this information. Last time I started giving info out over a month before we were even close to completing the version. (Mappers profiles with new images etc and the first few fixes/changes)

So I'm not sure what I can do to help improve that...  (Side note, you know where I live (in terms of IRC etc) PM me anytime with questions...)


TheAdj': Don't know if you noticed but at least 10-15 changes for 3.0f came straight out of the I&S forum, so it's really difficult to claim that no-one's listening when it's blatently obvious we are. Perhaps there's a little hostility because we aren't specifically listening to everyone of your ideas...  The scope of 3.1 also contains a fair number of I&S suggestions and I hope they all get in because they are great ideas. (expects a mad dash to the I&S forums now   )

As well, people were complaining about "happy meal" phases, and we made a change to address that. People were complaining about a lack of start res for marines and while we simply didn't smack an extra 10 res on starting res we adjusted the cost of 2 of the starting buildings, one of which could end up paying more than once. So we even released a patch SPECIFICALLY in an attempt to deal with issues brought up less than a month before....

----

We aren't as blind as people like to make us out to be, while we specifically don't say "Well person X it's obvious you know more about this than we do", we certainly read everything (actually we have spent a fair amount of time in the clan based balance thread found here http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....pic=91959&st=90 as well as balance type threads on many community sites (how do you think I ended up here?)) and discuss things at great lengths.

Hope that helps..

Mark

[Mr.Ben]

A 150 res boost might work on LM, but it couldn't be applied everywhere. A JP rush would be SO easy without that much starting res within a competitive enviroment. You'd really not have to even try.