Balance Mod - Third Iteration

rantology
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30 May 2014 - 08:40 EDT
#1
Okay, here we go! The meeting yesterday was productive, thank you to those that showed up. We have our first preliminary changelog for Iteration 3. Suggestions were pulled from the NSL thread and multiple conversations over the past few weeks. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the discussion- even if your idea was not used, the feedback was read and valued regardless!

CMOD 3rd Iteration Changelog

Previous changes (live version of cmod)

One change that is still under debate is retroactively removing alien abilities once they lose the biomass/hive.. is this going to hinder comebacks too harshly?

Dragon will begin coding this at his leisure and we should hopefully have a playable beta mod for it by the time season 4 is over.

Feel free to leave feedback & again please remain constructive.

p.s. one thing to note regarding the new/revised weapons is that the exact numbers (fire rate, damage) are going to be VERY subject to change - it's hard to guess what's going to work out well on paper, it's going to take playtesting to fine tune the numbers.
Wob
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30 May 2014 - 08:57 EDT
#2
I want to start the debate on removing alien abilities once the 2nd hive dies.

If you're fighting 2-2 or 3-2 marines that are capable of killing a hive in the first place, you have no umbra, leap, bone shield, charge, adv metabolise to face the onslaught of catpack and perma 2-2 or 3-2 marines.

If marines can kill the 2nd hive, all they need to do is pick lifeforms and any future lifeforms won't benefit. That should be balance enough.

If marines can take 1 of the hives, they'll EASILY be able to take the 2nd hive. It would be a massive snowball effect.
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30 May 2014 - 10:45 EDT
#3
Wob says
I want to start the debate on removing alien abilities once the 2nd hive dies.

If you're fighting 2-2 or 3-2 marines that are capable of killing a hive in the first place, you have no umbra, leap, bone shield, charge, adv metabolise to face the onslaught of catpack and perma 2-2 or 3-2 marines.

If marines can kill the 2nd hive, all they need to do is pick lifeforms and any future lifeforms won't benefit. That should be balance enough.

If marines can take 1 of the hives, they'll EASILY be able to take the 2nd hive. It would be a massive snowball effect.


Im with Wob on this, losing upgrades if you didn't die is going to suck. Lifeforms already have to play carefully in situations where you lost a second hive, leaving you on one. Having to play carefully and being really punished by lost upgrades is going to be much harder to deal with marines.


Increase biomass scaling for Fade from 5 → 20, Lerk from 2 → 10, Onos from 25 → 35

So this Effectively is an additional
Fade: 20/40/60/80/100/120/140/160/180
Lerk 10/20/30/40/50/60/70/80/90
Onos: 35/70/105/140/175/210/245/280/315

An additional 72% HP @ biomass9 on Lerk/Fade. Compared to the current 16% & 18% respectively. This seems like quite a huge difference.
Although maybe very well required against a HMG depending on how that scales? (12/13/14/15?)
Especially against an out of position onos which I can see taking a ton of damage late game.

Yet it only gets a change from 25% biomass buff to now 35%

Maybe some more conservative changes to fade/lerk wouldn't change it so much.



EXO ~ make the booster/jump a little better, add welder to 1 hand, 25 pres


The changes look nice, and could make them viable. Improving their basic movement is what really needs doing, like I suggested in the old thread

Cr4zy says
Increase their "boost" duration and allow it to work in all movement directions, this will make them much more effective in combat or when retreating they become much less of a target.


Strafe boosting or backwards boosting could make them really nice, maybe backwards boosting shouldn't be very fast though :p


remove GL grenade minimum detonation time

If GL no longer has a detonation time, will there be modifications to it's player damage? It's supposed to be anti-structure after all and Im not sure marines need another weapon to deal massive lifeform damage


But this is just going to need a ton of play testing overall.


rantology
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30 May 2014 - 11:05 EDT
#4
Biomass 1 doesn't have any bonus, so there's going to be effectively 8 biomass levels. Primarily this scaling change was aimed at the 1st/2nd hive biomass levels, 3rd hive will always be 3rd hive - extremely strong.

Biomass 1 VS. Biomass 6 (old scaling VS new scaling):

Lerk: 125/45 --> 175/45 (old:10hp --> new:50hp) 40hp difference from old scaling
Fade: 250/80 --> 350/80 (old:25hp --> new:100hp) 75hp difference from old scaling
Onos: 900/450 --> 1075/450 (old:125hp --> new:175hp) 50hp difference from old scaling

Like the marine weapons, these levels will need playtesting. For example with these changes we might be able to lower lerk armor a little bit (something that some have been advocating for for a while).
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30 May 2014 - 11:23 EDT
#5
Someone must show a screenshot of the hmg

And exos are more viable at last, excellent!
rantology
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30 May 2014 - 11:24 EDT
#6
this is kind of an old video I think, but this is it (ice's ns1 lmg)
Wob
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30 May 2014 - 12:13 EDT
#7
Please look at the "Modular exo" mod currently running on [SWE] Thirsty Onos.

It's an incredible and exciting mod that I think should be looked into being absorbed by the comp mod with a few balance tweaks
malga
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30 May 2014 - 18:42 EDT
#8
/Clap (honestly)
Syknik
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30 May 2014 - 19:24 EDT
#9
I'm really excited for a lot of these new changes. It'll definitely be very different and strange once HMGs and such are out. We are all so used to simply playing with a couple of guns, and things working a certain way, it'll be different for sure!
Tico
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30 May 2014 - 20:26 EDT
#10
rantology says
this is kind of an old video I think, but this is it (ice's ns1 lmg)


i really hope the lmg will not sound like that in game... xD
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31 May 2014 - 00:58 EDT
#11
I am a bit torn.

The mission statement with the competitive mod was following (taken from Zeframs previous post in another topic concerning the statement of a balance mod)

"If this community is to stay, and not just be sustained on life support, we need to do something to keep this game fresh, engaging, and fun. "

This has resulted in the above. I dont see the coalition between "balance" and "fresh, engaging and fun", but that might just be me. Apart from that, I do not question that this statement is streamlined very well with the 1st. 2nd. or 3rd possible iteration, but is it streamlined with NS2?

Ns2 in all of its simplicity is a very hard game, which is, in my openion, its ultimate force and downfall - very hard to learn, very hard to master. Kill hive/chair, cap res-notes for the advantage, kill players to protect or destroy res-notes, gain advantage + ??? = profit. But in all its simplicity, its low arsenal of weapons, simple lifeforms, simple structures, simple maplayout, but all very well thought through (or UWE just got lucky), there are so many aspects that is unique for this game, that make it a lovely challenge. A handfull of players have actually "mastered" the game, to the point where you can talk about "luck", even though the game does not have any aspect of it. Its cold, cynical, and you are going to pay for every mistake that your opponent notices. That's what I love about NS2. But thats not makes it fun for me. The fun is not the community, which i unfortunately have bad experiences with, but the players behind that.

WIth the new balance-mods I begin to feel a bit torn. The changes are beginning not to be small - i am not against change - without it, the competitive scene would be ruled by the same people, season after season. But I feel like the initially "intended" simplicity is beginning to fade away.

TL:DR Below

I believe that the changes should be cut down to the core - that the changes are thought out by, executed by and only partly used by high division players (those are the people i see on these posts generally). I personally know players who come to the competitive scene for the social part. "How does social match up with competitive?" you ask - it doesn't. But this is the only league out there. If you are bored of the game (im looking at you, higher divisions, which i am myself a part of), evolve - but be careful. This game needs to be kept simple.

NS2 is not UT which is so fast paced and enthralling. It is not MTG which is "slow" and thoughtfull, with each card breaking a rule. It is not LoL where a new champion comes out every month to keep it interesting. NS2 is slowpaced, with sudden critical encounters, repeating perfection, strategy, leadership. It is mindboggeling hard in all its simplicity, and that is what the brain loves - that is NS2 lifeblood. It is its force and its downfall.

My anus is prepared.
-Ixian
"It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, despite as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope" - J.R.R. Tolkien
snb
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31 May 2014 - 04:17 EDT
#12
Looking good for the most part. In my opinion, you got some things the wrong way around though, and it's a bit puzzling.

The reduced cost for lifeforms was introduced to make losing lifeforms more forgiving, which in itself was an unnecessary and bad change that has messed up lower division gameplay. Now, in addition, you want to introduce losing abilities with lost biomass, massively punishing hive losses. As a result, it will be proportionally harder to stay alive for lifeforms (ESPECIALLY taking into account the planned biomass hp buff), and if they die, they're even more fucked than before.

I don't understand the thinking behind this. I genuinely don't.

Losing your lifeform SHOULD be punished harshly because more pressure on individual people makes for more exciting gameplay, and on the flipside, it means killing a lifeform opens a big enough window for marines to actually be able to gain their well deserved advantage.

Losing a hive on the other hand should be a blow to the team and open up a window for marines as well, but not start a massive snowball effect with lifeforms dying left and right afterwards.

Now, you could argue that killing a hive is potentially more difficult to achieve than killing a lifeform and should punish aliens harder while rewarding marines more, and I'd have to say I disagree under most circumstances. Shit happens, gameplay gets frantic, hives die. If aliens choose to defend a hive push with everything they have and they play well enough not to have heavy casualties during, they deserve to keep being able to fight back appropriately strongly afterwards, independent of the outcome, hive saved or not. If aliens choose to sacrifice a hive to not risk any lifeforms, accepting the loss and counting on getting back on track afterwards, or if they decide to try a counter push on marines instead, that should be their gamble to take.

With this change, you'd do the opposite of the goal of this mod: you'd remove strategical options. The option of accepting a loss in hopes of coming back strong later on. There would be one, and only one reaction to a hive push: GET THE FUCK IN THERE AND SAVE IT. If you don't, the game is most likely over, independent of whether or not you lost your lifeforms during.

Do you have any idea what this would mean for divisions where gameplay isn't always perfect, where mistakes might happen and hives might get ninja'd? I think you do. The question is do you care.
skyice
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31 May 2014 - 04:39 EDT
#13
snb says
Shit happens, gameplay gets frantic, hives die
XD

You can also look at this from a different angle, the lower div teams find it much harder to just push into a hive and lock it down. Although i dont think that losing upgrades once the hive is dead is necessarily a positive thing at high level, i think it makes a hive rush more rewarding for marines and more exciting to watch.
If you pull it off its far more rewarding but at the same its a great chance for the aliens to make a critical exciting engagement which could decide the outcome of the game. But lets not pretend that killing a hive is easy, if it is then the marines deserve to win anyway.

This is also a great help for marines who struggle to kill lifeforms, if they manage to get the hive down they are rewarded by having the option to go for the weaker lifeforms.
We need to be careful not to turn NS2 into a stale mate in late game and keep it exciting as the Compmod is trying to do.

Neoken
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31 May 2014 - 13:24 EDT
#14
I like pretty much all of the changes. But I'm not too fond on making rupture more effective, as it's just such an annoying mechanic to begin with. Sure, it's pretty slow and thus easy to avoid, but you don't always see it coming in the midst of things. And if you do, it at least forces you to change your positioning. I think that's enough.

As far as the abilities discussion is concerned. It seems to me, with the alien play slowly shifting away from PvE spam dependency to more abilities/upgrades/biomass scaling utilisation, that losing a second hive is already going to be a bigger blow than it was before. So taking abilities away from lifeforms as well might be a bit too much. Guess we'll see.

HMG and EXO will change things up quite a bit, but that's what's testing is for. I'm glad an effort is made to increase the diversity in play.

My 2 cents. In any case, can't wait to try these changes out. :)
Golden
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31 May 2014 - 16:32 EDT
#15
snb says
The reduced cost for lifeforms was introduced to make losing lifeforms more forgiving, which in itself was an unnecessary and bad change that has messed up lower division gameplay. Now, in addition, you want to introduce losing abilities with lost biomass, massively punishing hive losses. As a result, it will be proportionally harder to stay alive for lifeforms (ESPECIALLY taking into account the planned biomass hp buff), and if they die, they're even more fucked than before.

I don't understand the thinking behind this. I genuinely don't.

Losing your lifeform SHOULD be punished harshly because more pressure on individual people makes for more exciting gameplay, and on the flipside, it means killing a lifeform opens a big enough window for marines to actually be able to gain their well deserved advantage.

Losing a hive on the other hand should be a blow to the team and open up a window for marines as well, but not start a massive snowball effect with lifeforms dying left and right afterwards.


One of the points behind the reduced res cost for lifeforms is to allow alien teams that are winning to take risks in order to end a game faster. It got to the point where marine teams just had to wait until the fades/onos made a mistake, then they still had minutes to come back. You still have a huge window to get work done after killing a lifeform, you just have to kill the lifeform faster.

The removal of abilities on hive death is meant to eliminate the single hive umbra-lerk who sits at safe doorways and spams rooms doing nothing else. In current balance, as long as you have your umbra lerk up then you don't really care about your second hive excepting its contribution to map control/an extra respawn area.

In response to your suggestion that lifeforms will start dying because of their reduced biomass, they'll actually have more health on biomass 3 than they would have on biomass 6.

snb says

Do you have any idea what this would mean for divisions where gameplay isn't always perfect, where mistakes might happen and hives might get ninja'd? I think you do. The question is do you care.


Everyone makes mistakes. And yes we care about the lower divisions. It's one of the reasons we post the changes here before they're even started coded - so we can get feedback from people that it will affect.
PS_Mouse
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1 June 2014 - 20:45 EDT
#16
Ixian says
I am a bit torn.

The mission statement with the competitive mod was following (taken from Zeframs previous post in another topic concerning the statement of a balance mod)

"If this community is to stay, and not just be sustained on life support, we need to do something to keep this game fresh, engaging, and fun. "

This has resulted in the above. I dont see the coalition between "balance" and "fresh, engaging and fun", but that might just be me. Apart from that, I do not question that this statement is streamlined very well with the 1st. 2nd. or 3rd possible iteration, but is it streamlined with NS2?

-----

I believe that the changes should be cut down to the core - that the changes are thought out by, executed by and only partly used by high division players (those are the people i see on these posts generally). I personally know players who come to the competitive scene for the social part. "How does social match up with competitive?" you ask - it doesn't. But this is the only league out there. If you are bored of the game (im looking at you, higher divisions, which i am myself a part of), evolve - but be careful. This game needs to be kept simple.


+1 to Ixian's thoughts.

With the introduction of new weapons (HMG) and the drastic change of existing weapons (Spore, Flamethrower & (arguably) EXO) I wonder if comp mod is starting to veer from being a balance mod towards being a total conversion mod akin to Combat or Hidden.
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2 June 2014 - 03:29 EDT
#17
HMG would work with weapon upgrades right?
rantology
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2 June 2014 - 03:53 EDT
#18
zebroe says
HMG would work with weapon upgrades right?


That's the plan.
simple
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2 June 2014 - 11:44 EDT
#19
Golden says

You still have a huge window to get work done after killing a lifeform, you just have to kill the lifeform faster.


I got the impression that, in the lowest division, killing a lifeform takes so much time , that the player usually already has the res to get it right back up. With the exception of the onos. If I'm not mistaken my teammates have a similar view.
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2 June 2014 - 16:34 EDT
#20
This look cool so far here are some ideas i wanna discuss about, i will write changes i want, and next to it the reason behind it

-Dash for each side instead of shitty truster for exo : like in titanfall but small one for balance purpose ofc to make thing reactive and fun to play (maybe 1 or 2 every ... secs)
I never enjoy exo gameplay way too fucking slow a dash can make it more viable and enjoyable

-Change blink cost to 13 or 12 : we can all agree that 11 was too good but 14 really, i mean u slow down fade, he cost more to blink its so painfull to play now compare to back in the days (there is difference between op and shit) and yes metabolize help between fight but not in fight (too long to use).
Cause i feel the fade is so passive to play now you have to be so carreful always its less instictive and enjoyable its more about calcutate, if u can engage, if u have enough adre etc, its not really funny anymore.
I feel people are paranoiak to see the fade balls again so they dont make it good

For the alien abilities remove once they lose the biomass/hive i think its a bad idea like wob say its too easy to rush 1 hive

For those worried about the changes i dont get it its the same game evolving since years why you suddenly afraid that it change more ? As long as the changes go in the right direction witch most are it keep the game fresh.
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2 June 2014 - 21:25 EDT
#21
Sinz says
For those worried about the changes i dont get it its the same game evolving since years why you suddenly afraid that it change more ? As long as the changes go in the right direction witch most are it keep the game fresh.

I'm not worried about change per se, I'm worried about comp mod drifting too far away from vanilla NS2.
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3 June 2014 - 14:41 EDT
#22
Nice you want to fix flamethrower, such spectacular looking weapon that could add dramatic look to the game. In my opinion maybe you should make it more intuitive and proud to use, that is:

- remove its ability to disable structures
- give it alot damage against lifeforms and structures, but keep the fact that flames can't stack and you need time to burn down alien (flamethrower will still need cover)

This way:
sg - short range early weapon
hmg - long range, good on aliens, bad for structures
flamethrower - "early exo", [weak against onos that got thick skin but good against every other alien thing]
gl - good for structures
exo - imho you should make it durable, powerful and slow [contradiction to the JP], they even should use phase slower
Sam
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3 June 2014 - 20:19 EDT
#23
Alright I wanna keep this brief so it's easy to read and not an eye sore.

I like most of the changes but I have my concerns. I will just list my concerns without going into too much detail.

Flamethrower - I like the changes making this weapon more viable, however the buffs it gives could be too strong imo. (20-30% dmg is rather large considering how powerful the shotgun already is and how powerful HMG and EXO could be)

Shotgun/HMG/EXO - I feel like shotguns come out far too early and are too strong early game, I would prefer the dmg to be lowered slightly to accommodate it's early timing and have the HMG or EXO as mid to late game. Pres values should be tweaked because of this.

For now those are my biggest/only concerns. I will go into more detail when my points are discussed.
nezz
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4 June 2014 - 00:53 EDT
#24
Agreed with SammyG - This has a huge detrimental effect. With the inclusion of HMG i think SG should be slightly weakened. As a HMG&SG combo will become almost impossible to attack without the full alien team w/ comm support.

rantology
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5 June 2014 - 03:28 EDT
#25
Dragon has published the first version of the mod for testing!

There's a few things that aren't in there yet (exo changes, rupture, gorge bhop) but it should be playable for the most part.

We're looking for BUGS! if you find any please post.
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5 June 2014 - 13:43 EDT
#26
Gorges can drop 3 tunnels.
Sam
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7 June 2014 - 11:53 EDT
#27
I have just put a server up with ns2b on so these changes can be tested and you can give your feedback.

Just type my name on the server browser to find the server.

Have fun :P
tealc
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7 June 2014 - 15:41 EDT
#28
-Early hmg seems op, mid-late game it feels fine. Could increase AA research time a lot from 45s to 2-3min (or AA cost).

-I still feel like blink cost is way too high

-A2 marine should die from 3 swipes/bites A3 from 4. (fades are like paper anyways)


Right now in the most popular maps marines have advantage. Big advantage on summit/tram.
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8 June 2014 - 14:00 EDT
#29
I with Ixian on the idea that this may make the comp mod drift away way to far from vanilla ns2.
The original idea was to balance some stuff. Right now we see more and more huge chanegs to standard abilities aswell as introduction of complete new stuff like HMG.

I do not see a need for a HMG. It will just replace the LMG completely and be even stronger for long range then its riffle counterpart. Atleast with shotguns you were only in real trouble up close. It will be much harder getting to a team wielding a mixture of both HMG and LMG.

On GL, I worry that the removal of detonation time will make it from 'this is sorta suck' to blatent op.

Gorges do not need bunnyhop. (atleast in div3 I saw no indication of them needing any). You should not need to escape like that in the first place. IF you get ambushed, you or your team did it wrong. Gorges can already 'escape' plenty by being aware of their surroundings and enemy position, and reacting in time. Also using enviroment as bullet soakers.

While I would like to see exo's on the field in comp more, I severely doubt we need a moving assault weapon capable of phasing. What could possibly be the argument to allow them to phase?

Also why would stomp account for LoS? I find it reasonable myself that a quake is sort of felt in its surroundings.


Every time I read the patch notes for the new version(s) I feel like we are making a mod which is wanted by the top div, screwing everyone below it. Now thats my opinion and for all I know the rest of us lower div folk disagree with me.. but I am losing faith in this mod every version.
tealc
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8 June 2014 - 18:49 EDT
#30
Found a bug with hmg.

1) shoot few bullets
2) switch to pistol and back to hmg
3) reloads as fast as normal lmg
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