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CRaZyCAT

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[preamble]
That change isn't like what was implemented in the game at all times. IMO it's affects the game's
fundamental habits and may substantially change game's meta. Since NSL wants to stay CompMod
similar to vanilla as much as possible you may not agree with necessity of this change but I still
think ns2 needs it.

The thing is that current NS2's metagame is shit. Generally the way how UWE realised the difference between aliens and marines, tech extension for both sides and variability of ways to evolve the match - the way how UWE realised that compared to NS1 is wrong IMO. At the moment NS2 is a deep tactical shooter about positioning, teamplay and prediction of an opponent's actions BUT with 0 strategic elements. But I want to see NS2 as a strategic game especially since it has RTS elements which is currently not realized at all. Comm (especially a marine Comm) became a person who serving his teammates every damn match in the same way with no creativity elements (with rare exceptions related o rushes, basetrades and other situations requiring immediate action).

For the last 7 NSL seasons nobody implemented nothing fundamentally new to the NS2 metagame. For not picky viewer every match on the higher skill level looks the same.

TL;DR The current NS2 meta is shit and has 0 strategic elements. We have to change this.
[/preable]

I present to your review an Extractor boost, Extractor overload and Harvester upgrade.

BTW I've already suggested something similar here:
https://feedback.userreport.com/19e981d4-394e-46de-997e-8913cc04aff2/#idea/76100
But it's obvious UWE not interested in adding suchlike new mechanics in to the game.

Marine side
Extractor boost and Extractor overload is a marine comm abilities. Both has their own cost and has their own cooldown. Can be used parallel. When marine comm cast it on RT it changes its sound and animation (Bost is more loud and defiant than normal and Overload more loud and defiant than Boost) and receives X3 (225 damage on Bite) increased damage for Boost and X4 (300 damage on Bite) increased damage for Overload.
Boost costs 10 TRes. Boosted RT if it was not killed after 60 seconds returns 15 TRes (50% income). Boost cooldown is 15 seconds so only 3 RTs can be boosted at the same time. That also does not allow comm to boost all RTs at once right after entire alien team was annihilated.
Overload costs 20 TRes. Overloaded RT if it was not killed after 120 seconds returns 40 TRes (100% income). Overload cooldown is 120 seconds (more likely will be spamed on the base RT but can be easly cleaned by 1 skulk because it needs only 15 Bites do die). Overload can not be dropped on the Boosted RT (and vice versa).

Boosts and Overload do not affect marines PRes raise at all. Also it can not be canceled. During both boosts extractors mines resourses as usual if not mention new sound and animation.

Alien side
Harvester upgrade applies to the each RT separately increasing its income for both Pres and Tres. Also upgrade needs a time to finish (upgrading does not stop Harvester from mining). Upgrade can be canceled before it finishes and then alien Comm return 100% of the upgrade cost.
There are two levels of upgrading:
2nd Level
Increase res flow to 1(0.1)/5s from default 1(0.1)/6s.
Upgrade cost 20 TRes. Upgrade time 60 seconds.
Lowers the Harvester's HP to 1500/320 (2140 total) from 2300/320.
Harvester can not be upgraded until it gets 100% of its maturity.
3rd Level
Increase res flow to 1(0.1)/4s.
Upgrade cost 30 TRes. Upgrade time 120 seconds.
Lowers the Harvester's HP to 500/320 (1140 total) from 1500/320.

On each level upgraded harvesters gets new animation and sound. No limit on maximum Harvester can be upgraded.

This mechanics allows teams to define if they want to invest money in to fast grades/tech or in to economy. For marines boost mechanic will buff every tech path except fast grades->sg->pg so we will see more various openings from the marine side. If aliens upgrading their RTs marines is interested in scouting it and kill that RTs asap (that can be fulfilled by different ways too - so it creates more ways for marine side to harass alien economy. We can witness situation where 2 SGs traded for a full graded Harvester is still more profitable for Marine side etc).

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Mephilles

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I agree that the strategic elements are too close to non existant and I love the fact that you want to implement a mechanic for commanders that forces them to think about how they want to invest their res. (I think Marine comm notices this more than the alien comm)

However currently 90% of the competitve games have the same tech paths because it seems to be the strongest one atm. Even with this new mechanic I doubt the tech variety will change, it would just help to get a2, shotguns faster.

I think to add more strategic variety to the game is to balance the techpaths in a way that their are techpaths on equal strength that differ in the playstyle needed to execute it.

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Kmacg

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Your marine point is interesting, idk if I agree or like the numbers but it's definitely interesting.

On alien though, I don't agree at all. Alien comm is ALREADY wayyyy higher skill ceiling than marine.
Bonewalls, cyst creeping, drifter micro (scouting, abilities, distraction), pve micro is a lot of shit that EXISTS it just *isn't used*.
Everything I listed there is honestly really powerful, but people just don't do it. It's just people always think having comm skulk is better, when it really isn't so clear cut.

IMO the only thing I'd like for alien comm is to see whips fixed, and drifter movement to be a bit less fucking annoying (sometimes they just don't respond well at all).

I'd love to have more of a discussion of shift hive though, personally it's better for comms from where I stand, I wonder what people think on this though.
I feel shift honestly isn't particularly weak, just you have to have a shift comm that makes it worthwhile (enzyme rt biting, shifting 1 set of pve instead of building multiples etc).

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Bicsum

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I like the idea of having to decide between survivability and resource gain. However..

a) Is there a particular reason why it would need to work differently for both sides?

b) I could imagine that the constant RT buffing could end up feeling like work. Like in mobile games, where you have to gather coins every day.

c) What would speak against having a 3-level slider on each RT that sets the HP/resource-gain balance, that costs no res to change and takes 60 seconds to change?

d)

CRaZyCAT says

For marines boost mechanic will buff every tech path except fast grades->sg->pg so we will see more various openings from the marine side.

I don't really see why. Currently you also kind of have the option to go for fast economy or fast upgrades, although it is somewhat limited by the map.

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CRaZyCAT

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ChildrensPockets says

On alien though, I don't agree at all. Alien comm is ALREADY wayyyy higher skill ceiling than marine.
Bonewalls, cyst creeping, drifter micro (scouting, abilities, distraction), pve micro is a lot of shit that EXISTS it just *isn't used*.
Everything I listed there is honestly really powerful, but people just don't do it. It's just people always think having comm skulk is better, when it really isn't so clear cut.

I agree but that idea isn't about increase the skill ceiling but about increase tech variaty and playstyle variaty for both sides. If marines will play a fast pg strat and bulild 5 RTs then just stay defend and spam boosts and overload with no agression it's reasonable to give aliens an opportunity to do the same. And in theory alien investings to economic have more potential because it affects every alien player PRes. So in theory if both sides decide invest all money in to econimic then marines have to change their mind and go offensive first.

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Mephilles

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For drifters I would suggest reducing health maybe decrease the time they need to turn. This way the drifter agility and response times would be higher (people might remember how agile the drifter used to be).

Marine comm is the real issue I think. Dropping buildings, meds, catpacks and scans are things that don't need any kind of creativity. The last creative thing I have seen a marine comm doing is putting a forward armory in a choke point to use power surge on it to damage the aliens near it.

A mechanic that would allow marine comms to be more creative would be rly nice.

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Kmacg

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Mephilles says

For drifters I would suggest reducing health maybe decrease the time they need to turn. This way the drifter agility and response times would be higher (people might remember how agile the drifter used to be).

I'd rather deal with them as they are than change them that way tbh. I'm not suggesting making them faster, but sometimes they get "stuck" almost, and turn on the spot for longer than they should. Their pathing can also just be really odd at times. I'd also LOVE to see fixes for them getting stuck behind upgrades when dumb gather people do that and you can't save them, and for when they try/succeed in climbing into the roof and stuff like that.

Even if turn speed was buffed, I'm not convinced that this would need any changes. They still move at the same speed, so can be tracked. If they have less health they have less function. People are already so fucking scared of using drifters in combat in case they die.
The only potential issue I can see is if you set up some kind of weird patrol, but honestly I can't see that being a big problem for marines; it'd still be too predictable.

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CRaZyCAT

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Bicsum says

I like the idea of having to decide between survivability and resource gain. However..
a)
b)
c)
d)

a) Aliens have more technics for defend their territories, also they are more dependent on the factor how close RT to the hive and how easy for marines to clear that RT. So I suppose that aliens are able to defend a certain RT as long as they can (Nano, Oxygination, Pump Control e.t.c). If you make same mechanic for marines they will fail because it much more harder for them to defend a certain RT constantly. Skulk will just clear that RTs before marines can come to defend it. So they are able to boost it, then go agressive and let skulk to bait that RT after boost ends.
With all this, aliens' RTs value firstly is in its PRes flow rather than TRes. But unlike the marines alein Comm can not convert Tres into Pres.

So that's why I suggest different mechanic.

b) Does it matter? Nobody will force to use that. If team don't like that mechanic then they can play old style.

c) Investing resources into economic should produce a threat to be punished for too greedy play. And ofc investment should stay INVESTMENT that mean that you have to spend something first to get profit then. That's how it works in all strategies like StarCraft.

d) Well for now marines can't build too many RTs at the initial stage of the round because of problems with defending them. If they successfully do it (build 6-7 RTs on a 3rd minute) they already won. That's not playing throught economy investment tbh.

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Bicsum

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CRaZyCAT says

Bicsum says
I like the idea of having to decide between survivability and resource gain. However..
a)
b)
c)
d)

a) Aliens have more technics for defend their territories, also they are more dependent on the factor how close RT to the hive and how easy for marines to clear that RT. So I suppose that aliens are able to defend a certain RT as long as they can (Nano, Oxygination, Pump Control e.t.c). If you make same mechanic for marines they will fail because it much more harder for them to defend a certain RT constantly. Skulk will just clear that RTs before marines can come to defend it. So they are able to boost it, then go agressive and let skulk to bait that RT after boost ends.
With all this, aliens' RTs value firstly is in its PRes flow rather than TRes. But unlike the marines alein Comm can not convert Tres into Pres.

So that's why I suggest different mechanic.

b) Does it matter? Nobody will force to use that. If team don't like that mechanic then they can play old style.

c) Investing resources into economic should produce a threat to be punished for too greedy play. And ofc investment should stay INVESTMENT that mean that you have to spend something first to get profit then. That's how it works in all strategies like StarCraft.

d) Well for now marines can't build too many RTs at the initial stage of the round because of problems with defending them. If they successfully do it (build 6-7 RTs on a 3rd minute) they already won. That's not playing throught economy investment tbh.

a) & c)
What I mean is that RT itself is already an investment and lowering its HP to gain more res would reach the same goal. You increase the risk of losing the RT in exchange for more res.

b) well, yeah, I guess, that is true. At first I thought that it would lead to some sort of cookie-cutter plays, where you have to do it, because balance would require you do it, because you'd otherwise automatically fall behind in the res game, but I see that this wouldn't be true, as long as you react accordingly to what the opponent does.

d) Well, I meant what Mephilles wrote. You will still want upgrades before PGs, no?

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Deck

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This seems like a major change to the game, but it's interesting. I don't know if this would result in what you want though. Seems like you're just increasing res for the commander to do things. Wouldn't the commander still go with the things that are going to helps the marines get life form kills since that's how the game works? Right now I don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be on marines.

Upgrades are popular first. I've heard debates on if weapons 2 or armor 2 is better first. Arcs seemed used a lot but not always. Cat packs are used a lot. I think this is good for gameplay because marines are moving. I think at this point, we could look into if there should be a clear advanced tech path for the marines besides jp and exo. For example, the machine gun or some weapon that's a clear ideal advanced thing to have when onos are up. I think the issue now is, people don't feel enough variety because sgs can be up 4-6 mins in and it's the best weapon in the game.

Would have to come up with some creative ideas how to make that different but also not ruin the great sg vs life form fights. Let me know what ideas people have. Perhaps we should forget about the machine gun, and figure out an advanced sg/rail gun option. Perhaps there could be a way to move faster, with a better weapon as an advanced tech option for marines. Since SG is so useful in early game as well, it might make more sense to just make an advanced form of this weapon/rail gun which is essentially a greater range sg. This way, you keep the speed of the game, marines not in huge suits which totally change the game-play, but you give marines a clear better weapon/straight upgrade from what they have earlier.

The question on how to make the marine commanders job more creative. I think you can do that by adding more pve things to the game for the commander to do. Right now it's mostly about hitting meds. Communication is also really important for marine commander. If we add pve elements to marines, is that good for game-play though? If you can think of an idea to make a marines job more creative, and not increase pve in the game, would make for a good discussion. Please share if people want to come up with weapon ideas for marines advanced tech, and ways to make marine commander more creative.

Edit**or what about nerfing the sg vs the onos/increase damage of machine gun vs onos? It may create a clear counter to the onos. Right now, seems like you don't need one or never have to worry about the counter. That is why machine guns are never used, and why it seems like marines have the best weapon in the game 4 minutes in.

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BauerJankins

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it only took this man a month to read this

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TLDR but I would be in favor of ACC boosts. Anytime I am not shooting at something I should slowly gain 1% acc over 30 seconds. Agrees? Makes sense to me.

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CRaZyCAT

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Deck says

create a clear counter to the onos

A weapon which inflict damage based on target's full HP and/or has slower projectile. Something called like Plasma Gun (look how Plasma Gun in quake works) or Tesla Gun. Maybe an exo which has a FT in one hand and that weapon in other.

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CRaZyCAT says

Deck says
create a clear counter to the onos

A weapon which inflict damage based on target's full HP

What do you mean by that?

A Plasma gun / projectile based weapon for marines would be really fun, but I am not sure if it would work well with lag? Gorge spit already seems quite frustrating to use.

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Home says

What do you mean by that?

A Plasma gun / projectile based weapon for marines would be really fun, but I am not sure if it would work well with lag? Gorge spit already seems quite frustrating to use.

I mean you take target's full HP, for example 80 HP for skulk, 900 HP for onos as I know, so if you make a weapon which inflict for example 10 + 10% (of target's full amount of HP) normal damage it will sux against skulk (18 damage per shot) and will be clear counter against onos (100 damage per shot). But need to nerf SG vs onos first I guess.

I'm not sure about lags tho. By the way marines already has projectile based weapon (GL).

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CRaZyCAT

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Suddently on last week my idea on https://feedback.userreport.com/19e981d4-394e-46de-997e-8913cc04aff2/#ideas/popular was marked as being considered.

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Deck

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CRaZyCAT says

Home says

What do you mean by that?

A Plasma gun / projectile based weapon for marines would be really fun, but I am not sure if it would work well with lag? Gorge spit already seems quite frustrating to use.

I mean you take target's full HP, for example 80 HP for skulk, 900 HP for onos as I know, so if you make a weapon which inflict for example 10 + 10% (of target's full amount of HP) normal damage it will sux against skulk (18 damage per shot) and will be clear counter against onos (100 damage per shot). But need to nerf SG vs onos first I guess.

I'm not sure about lags tho. By the way marines already has projectile based weapon (GL).

So you want a weapon that is terrible against skulks, but good against an onos? I think the game plays better when marines can clear skulks quickly, especially in the mid game. The big team fights have a lot of alien advantages. Drifter support, umbra, marines having to focus one target to kill anything with a lot of HP. If the skulks are hard to kill for a marine, how is that player going to be a big enough threat in a group fight? The ability to put out consistent burst damage is what gives marines a chance in an outnumbered fight.

One idea is to make a clear upgrade from the sg, and get rid of the machine gun. So either it's a better shotgun(faster rate of fire, more shots before reload) or rail gun you would see mid/late game.

Another idea is you could nerf the sg vs the onos and/or increase machine gun damage vs onos. This idea is the most conservative to me and makes the most sense. We don't have to balance a new weapon. You are essentially only hurting what the sg does vs onos. It would still be very good in all team fights, and a huge part of the game. It could make teams think about having at least one machine gun out on the field when onos pop. Right now you sometimes see one person grab a gl, and a rifle for a lerk. The machine gun could add another layer like that. It could be the onos killer, and still be good against lerks and fades. You would see big plays with them because they would actually be used.

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Deck says

Right now you sometimes see one person grab a gl, and a rifle for a lerk. The machine gun could add another layer like that. It could be the onos killer, and still be good against lerks and fades. You would see big plays with them because they would actually be used.

I think the reason why MG isn't used often because that weapon isn't really worth its PRes value. MG is quite weak in a big team fights against skulks, lerks and fades. With MG in big team fights it's usually very hard to put enough damage quckly to fight of fades, clear skulks and focus onos before death and this is not looking at the fact that shooting with that weapon even harder than shooting with LMG because of large scatter and lesser movement speed. And all this costs 20 PRes or 40 TRes + AA + research.

So maybe it makes sense to make it easier to acquire that weapon and then if you nerf sg a bit it will be widely used. How can you nerf SG vs Onos especially while remain it still strong vs other lifeforms?

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CRaZyCAT says

Deck says
Right now you sometimes see one person grab a gl, and a rifle for a lerk. The machine gun could add another layer like that. It could be the onos killer, and still be good against lerks and fades. You would see big plays with them because they would actually be used.

I think the reason why MG isn't used often because that weapon isn't really worth its PRes value. MG is quite weak in a big team fights against skulks, lerks and fades. With MG in big team fights it's usually very hard to put enough damage quckly to fight of fades, clear skulks and focus onos before death and this is not looking at the fact that shooting with that weapon even harder than shooting with LMG because of large scatter and lesser movement speed. And all this costs 20 PRes or 40 TRes + AA + research.

So maybe it makes sense to make it easier to acquire that weapon and then if you nerf sg a bit it will be widely used. How can you nerf SG vs Onos especially while remain it still strong vs other lifeforms?

Perhaps we could try:
1) machine gun unlocked when you advance the armory
2) machine gun 20 pres
3) increase damage on machine gun per bullet/or more damage to onos
4) increase onos health

You do have lesser movement speed with machine gun vs rifle, but it's same movement as with grenade launcher in comp mod. I do think you have to do 2 things to make the weapon valuable though. You have to make it stronger than sg vs onos, and you have to make it easier to get.

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BauerJankins

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can you not
unless you've given up hope for a next season too, already

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BauerJankins says

can you not
unless you've given up hope for a next season too, already

I don't think it's giving up to think about new things to do. I do think changing the onos health is really risky. It seems like the marine upgrade path/game play is very simple when it comes to weapons. The heavy machine game was added to comp mod originally for a reason. I don't think the goal was to make it a weapon that is never used. You think making the machine gun a little easier to get is going to ruin the game? How bout unlock the weapon on advanced armory and 20 pres. Then we have tons of time to see if the weapon is in a good spot or not. Hard to tell if you never see it researched or used.

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Regarding the OP, I do think you bring up good points. It would be nice for marine commanders to make strategic plays more, but making major changes to the res flow of the game would take a lot of balancing and wouldn't necessarily make the game better. The marine commander does have to be constantly watching marines for meds. So not sure how much other stuff you want to add for a marine commander to do. That's why I think having catpacks as a bigger part of the game with a short duration keeps the marine commander constantly making decisions on risk/reward and res being spent. Knowing which fights to med, and cat pack.

Also it's just difficult for comp mod to make huge changes to the game. I will try to discuss the idea with Steelcap to see his thoughts on the res idea from CrazyCat.

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