Development Blog Update - Marine "Power Grid" design Options

[Flayra]

I like the tech points idea. I think there should only be 4 on a map. And the marine start and alien start should be randomized between those 4 points so that neither team knows where the other team begins. This really makes for a different game each time. Also, hive rooms won't be needed because dynamic infestation will basically make the alien start into a default hive room.

Also, the marines should continue to tech without needing to capture additional tech points. Similar to NS1, marines build up in their base while aliens capture the remaining 2 tech points for upgrading. This keeps each race unique.

I don't care for the linked energy system because it basically limits strategy. Part of the fun of NS1 is making forward attack points and linking them with phase gates. Perhaps the aliens can have a similar system like the Zerg Nydas Canal or other warp system. However, a direct energy line link really seems to kill originality.

We would love to do this but getting the audio/visuals right for a dynamic hive room is very tricky. Ie, we would have to programmatically make a hive room feel totally alieny with code. That's a big challenge and one we might save for after v1.0.

We're trying to do this as much as possible (with DI, etc.) but committing to it for v1.0 is a big risk.

[Jimyd]

We would love to do this but getting the audio/visuals right for a dynamic hive room is very tricky. Ie, we would have to programmatically make a hive room feel totally alieny with code. That's a big challenge and one we might save for after v1.0.

We're trying to do this as much as possible (with DI, etc.) but committing to it for v1.0 is a big risk.

Since fixed start locations look like a possibility, can we make the start locations for the initial hive/command chair have a inherit advantage on the map unique to each side.

I.E.

Alien start hive would have alot of natural positions (vents and the like) to ambush from, where as Marine start not so much (Marines get height advantage?). The reason being is that I dont want the starting Tech Nodes be so uniform that they are easy to take over in the first 3 minutes of the game, because then the game just turns into who rushes better. You see this alot in RTS games where one side(or more) is inbalanced, with the end result being the game is decided within the first few minutes of the game because the other person had a better build/rush strategy.

(Just added this.)

I prefer maps with each room is unique to the next (but go with the theme of the map), to just "Tournament" style maps like in RTS games. That is what I am getting at.

This post has been edited by Jimyd: Apr 12 2009, 12:43 AM

[Flayra]

Having two (or more) commanders sounds interesting but I can understand why people don't like the idea. Imagine players jumping into the CC just to drop a shotgun for themself. At the same time the idea of two commanders (maybe even with split resources) when there is no power connection between their CCs - and the requirement to have another commander to build at the other base - sounds very interesting but this would probably add a layer of complexity that goes well beyond the scope of a shooter.

Fyi, Commanders don't drop weapons for players any more. Players on the ground buy their own weapons at an armory. The commander is responsible for researching weapons though.

Also, there is no requirement for a 2nd Commander, ever. You can build a second Command Station and build in that room normally. They don't have to be linked either. Rooms with a built Command Station in them are always powered (until that Command Station is destroyed).

[Jimyd]

Fyi, Commanders don't drop weapons for players any more. Players on the ground buy their own weapons at an armory. The commander is responsible for researching weapons though.

Also, there is no requirement for a 2nd Commander, ever. You can build a second Command Station and build in that room normally. They don't have to be linked either. Rooms with a built Command Station in them are always powered (until that Command Station is destroyed).

Have a system like Left 4 Dead, where if more than 50% of the team votes out a Commander, he is temporarily relieved of command for say like, 5 minutes or so. Also including a votekick option as well like Left 4 Dead would be good to, but make that like 75% of the players on your own team.


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Here's the problem people are worried about when it comes to a 2nd commander:

Do they share resources?
We need to know how the resource model is possibly going to work to determine if this is okay or not.

Can they override each other's actions?

Can they make a permanent choice without consulting the orginal commander, thus making their team lose?
(Research more armor when weapons upgrades are needed.)
Suggestion: Limit 2nd commander to droping supplies only... medpack,ammunition,etc.

Is having a 2nd commander ultimately always going to be detrimental, because that is one less soldier on the battlefield.
(I take my figures on that the game will be balanced around 12v12 gameplay.)

This post has been edited by Jimyd: Apr 12 2009, 12:52 AM

[Zamma]

I'll go into multiple commanders at some point but the takeaway is that the commander on both sides will be less about being a total authority and more about being a different character "class". I loved the leadership qualities of an authoritarian Commander in NS, but I believe that the overall game will be better if the role is designed to allow multiples to function together with stepping on each other's toes.

Hence the name...


My current problem is that I'm just worried with NS2 in general. I like the idea of the team adding in more RTS elements as NS1 is very basic in terms of what a commander can do. Still I feel you're going the wrong way around adding this RTS element into the game. Adding more upgrades/buildings/orders and maybe a style of getting resources is one thing, but changing how the game works nearly completely is extremely risky.

People say NS1 was a hard game to learn but from what I'm seeing NS2 looks extremly complicated. I mean the fact is players are going to come to the game open it up, realise it doesn't work like most RTS games (like NS1 does) and will have to learn/figure out the tech routes ASWELL as the alien counters and the original buildings and upgrades.

tjosan and buggeh have made some great points.

[locallyunscene]

I was going to quote a bunch of people, but I've decided I haven't given the idea enough time to soak in.

I'm worried about marines being too "turtley" as tjosan says, but I also see that marines should not be able to fully control large swatches of territory absolutely.

I'm worried about the idea being too complex as ChromeAngel suggests, but I could see visually cues sufficiently directing the player. On this note I recommend the lights to flicker in "waves" to signal which room the disturbance is coming from.

And I'm seeing the potential balance difficulties Crispy outlines(the devil you know vs the devil you don't), but I also see some of the potential advantages of the system since you have to rebalance everything anyway.

Some random comments:
I'm glad you're keeping the resnodes. I was afraid you would limit the teching to "tech points" and decrease the strategy depth in the direction by making the maps smaller.

I think the removal of the phase gate is the right direction. Squad spawning really tends to make the obsolete and make for faster/more dynamic gameplay.

QFT

[Jimyd]

Hence the name...
My current problem is that I'm just worried with NS2 in general. I like the idea of the team adding in more RTS elements as NS1 is very basic in terms of what a commander can do. Still I feel you're going the wrong way around adding this RTS element into the game. Adding more upgrades/buildings/orders and maybe a style of getting resources is one thing, but changing how the game works nearly completely is extremely risky.

People say NS1 was a hard game to learn but from what I'm seeing NS2 looks extremly complicated. I mean the fact is players are going to come to the game open it up, realise it doesn't work like most RTS games (like NS1 does) and will have to learn/figure out the tech routes ASWELL as the alien counters and the original buildings and upgrades.

tjosan and buggeh have made some great points.

Which can be solved with either a really good manual, or ingame tutorial. Make sure when the manual is printed that it is as close to final release version as possible.

I'm all for both, but if I were to choose one it would be the manual. A good tutorial that completly explains the game is alot more time consuming than typing up some text lines and paragraphs. (Assuming the tutorial the player actually has camera control, and is not just a model slideshow.)

This post has been edited by Jimyd: Apr 12 2009, 01:10 AM

[FrostFire626]

I'll go into multiple commanders at some point but the takeaway is that the commander on both sides will be less about being a total authority and more about being a different character "class". I loved the leadership qualities of an authoritarian Commander in NS, but I believe that the overall game will be better if the role is designed to allow multiples to function together with stepping on each other's toes

Wait...



WHAT!?

My jaw literally dropped when I saw this. The marine commander WILL NOT BE IN COMMAND?? Trying to be civil here, but WTF are you talking about?

I'm guessing that this is a move to make the game more streamlined and accessible to new players, but you are talking about taking away the most important element of a commander, THE POWER TO COMMAND. I just can't believe this. Commanding, by definition, is the act of stepping on everyone's toes in order to get a job done.

I've spent a lot of time trying to understand why people who don't use a mic jump into the chair at the very beginning of a game. It is my belief that the #1 most important attribute of a commander is the ability to communicate sound strategies and orders efficiently to the grunts, which is next to impossible without a mic.

If I understand this quote correctly, the NS2 marine team will not even need orders from the commander?

This is your game, and you have every right to do whatever you want with it. But, for god's sake, don't castrate the commander and relegate him to a purely logistical role.

This post has been edited by FrostFire626: Apr 12 2009, 01:51 AM

[aeroripper]

If multiple commanders are implemented, it should work like this:

1) Primary commander - is able to do everything. All overall strategy, research, and medding/in field ammo, weld bot, and whatever else he can do.

2) Secondary commander - This role is unlocked after Tier2 is reached. The second command chair can be unlocked by the primary comm to alleviate some of his responsibilities if he chooses. This would likely be "medding, ammo drops, general squad maintenance stuff.

3) Third commander - once Tier3 is reached, this would alleviate most intelligence operations. Scanning, weld bot control, monitoring res nodes and being able to send informational hud alerts to marines/other commanders.

Essentially all 3 roles (if there are 3) would do 1\3 of the commanders workload if needed. I can see where this would help newer players who aren't very good commanders. It would all have to be very simple and intuitive though, so it could be picked up quickly. The idea is that it slowly introduces new players to commanding, without everybody screaming and voting them out.

Of course the primary commander would have ultimate control, and could eject either of these auxilliary commanders at any time if he chooses. Essentially it would make the job easier for newbie commanders by splitting up responsibilities. Some kind of solution would have to be worked out so you don't have 3 commanders over voicecomm. Maybe once your second and third commanders enter in, they are locked to 'command chat' voicecomm only so its collaborative between the commanders, but only the primary commander can still voicecomm with the entire team and his command crew.

Sounds kind of cool to me, and if implemented correctly would get more people less afraid to command over time.

This post has been edited by aeroripper: Apr 12 2009, 02:05 AM

[Max]

If I understand this quote correctly, the NS2 marine team will not even need orders from the commander?

The commander gives orders to marines in NS2.

[SentrySteve]

Wait...
WHAT!?

My jaw literally dropped when I saw this. The marine commander WILL NOT BE IN COMMAND?? Trying to be civil here, but WTF are you talking about?

I'm guessing that this is a move to make the game more streamlined and accessible to new players, but you are talking about taking away the most important element of a commander, THE POWER TO COMMAND. I just can't believe this. Commanding, by definition, is the act of stepping on everyone's toes in order to get a job done.

I've spent a lot of time trying to understand why people who don't use a mic jump into the chair at the very beginning of a game. It is my belief that the #1 most important attribute of a commander is the ability to communicate sound strategies and orders efficiently to the grunts, which is next to impossible without a mic.

If I understand this quote correctly, the NS2 marine team will not even need orders from the commander?

This is your game, and you have every right to do whatever you want with it. But, for god's sake, don't castrate the commander and relegate him to a purely logistical role.

Without going too far off in another debate entirely, I never thought the commander actually had any 'control.' The team makes the strategy and the commander just simply implements it. How many times did you run off randomly, and call for a node? How many times did the players on the field whine for jetpacks until they were researched? How many times did a marine see an opportunity for a ninja phase so he called for one? Back in the hay-day of NS I rarely saw commanders who ran their team. Instead, the team ran the commander.

Granted, the commander is a member of the team and has a say in strategy too but pretending that the commander is the sole strategist on the team does not make for a fun gameplay model. Why? Because when the other members of the team start forming the strategy, which inevitably happens, the commander is stripped of their duties and they become nothing more than baby sitters. I'd rather see a gameplay model that recognizes this and chooses the make the commander valuable in some other way.

[FrostFire626]

Removed by FrostFire626

This post has been edited by FrostFire626: Apr 12 2009, 06:09 AM

[Mindmeldme]

Ok so here's my take, I skipped a lot of the posts so I hope I don't double up.

The idea itself sounds really good. I myself enjoyed the company of heros approach to supply and I think it can be moved to NS by all means. I think the idea of having a room attached to a grid makes sense and is a useable idea. Of course then the skulks hitting the towers are a constant worry and they must be looked after at all times to avoid disruption. This makes fades more useful in that role as well once the nodes are electrified.

My concern however is a static issue and the usual choke point problem. In a lot of setups like this the map comes down to 2 spots usually, a water crossing, choke point, hallway, what have you, where the to sides collide from thier starts. The randomness to NS2 would help however depending on map design you would end up with standard rooms needed to take right away to work towards that would control the map (Mess hall). Taking over hive locations, botteling up the opponents, etc. It's always tough to avoid but that is my concren in the end. I imagine after a lot of play testing it can be easily worked around.

The next thing I read is on multiple commanders. This is normal in some games I run because I'll have 1 or 2 sub commanders (Sargents) running the marines next to them. This is tough when you have 1 unified voice channel. Game wise there's not much you can do really to seperate all the calls coming in. However what does worry me is as a commander not handing out weapons. This to me really takes away from the leverage you need as a commander to get things done in pub games. Without the threat of not giving someone the equipment they want you need some other incentive to get people to follow your orders.

My next concern following that is marines buying thier own weapons. What do they cost? Where do they get the money/res? Is it taken from a pool? Does this mean the rambo that keeps buying a shotgun and running off and getting ambushed uses WAY more res then everyone else thus preventing research? How will it work? Like NS 1 when aliens all got a bit at a time very slowly?

I know over time all this can be sorted out but that's my take on it as of right now. I think over all it's a great idea and approach and I do miss the hour plus games I used to run as a commander bringing a team back from the brink of defeat. Teamwork wins the day on both sides. However I have always said the Marines are only as good as thier Commander, but thier Commander is only as good as his Marines.

[Phlash]

Right as I began reading the update today I knew where you were going with it and was very excited. This seems like it will make the gameplay far more dynamic than it was in NS1. Awesome work Charlie and Max!

[aegix]

I think you guys are overplaying the complexity of this idea. It's really not that complex. Download the company of heroes demo if you've never played it to see how linked resource sectors work. It's very intuitive as long as you have a visual indicator of the linkages on a minimap or whatever.

[schkorpio]

its starting to sound too much like bf2 or bf2142 which works fine in those games - for both the capture points and commander systems.

butmaybe its straying too far from ns1

[Radix]

Interesting way you've blended the idea for qualitative and quantitative resources.

Hope it works out well; it looks very cool.

[perfectheat]

Very interesting.

There are a lot of questions in the air and as we know things will be tested thoroughly. A bit scared NS2 will be to player friendly compared to NS1. I'm just looking at the simple map and what to me sounds look a system with less tactical options from a marines standpoint.

One can look at marines movement as starting in the base of a tree and branching out. Cutting of a branch will stop support to it's leafs and so on.. I like the idea of multiple command "chairs". As I understand the command network will be safer for the marines that way. If you choose to play with only one commander and his original chair is taken down someone can jump in at any of the other chairs and take control from there until the commander spawns in again. Wondering if it would be a good to make the commander merge with the command network. That way, taking down the original chair won't stop the "commanding" as he will be alive within the network.

I like the idea of more then one commander too. If you make one supreme commander. Any bonuses other then more safety? He or they seem to have less work to do now. What do they do except research & build at less places then before? It seems it will most certainly become more of a frontline game. Can they still drop medpacks in the field?

Most of use loved the fact that the marines could set up small bases far behind enemy lines. Looking at the map the main fights will almost always be around 2 points that are very close to each other. I'm not sure if people have mentioned Double Res. A big part of NS1 was that fight or the early rush for it. Now it sounds like a slow crawl. My guess you are thinking of making the dynamic infestation to something similar as the power grid. So that the aliens can't build in non infested chambers. Meaning the alien commander controls the flow of infestations.

Back to the map example: All the rooms look very even in size and so those the corridors who all look very short and wide. It looks like the new siege tank can get everywhere. I for one like long, narrow, messy corridors behind enemy lines. Even when I'm all alone and have a fade coming in fast from the other end. Giving him some pistol before I pull out my shotgun when nice and close.

Looking forward to hearing more about this!!

[ChromeAngel]

I liked Crispy's Power Generator idea of having a choice of structures too build on a tech node. A second Command Station in NS was always a defensive option (and very optional at that). Perhaps the alternate tech structure could be more offensive?

ie : Command Station 2 unlocks: lt-commander, armor upgrades, welder, exo armor, motion tracking and eletrified structures
Offensive Tech unlocks: weapon upgrades, miniguns, grenade launchers, jet packs and phase gates (nukes of the commander to drop?)

OK maybe not all of those on one structure, but you see where i'm going. Both flavors of tech structure would provide power to the grid, however they would provide other (secondary) benifits, that could be the keystone to marine stratergies. The prototype lab from NS always felt kind of tacked on and out of place this could bring it's successor more in-line with marine statergy.

3rd option : Area denial, a big old hard to kill lump of metal intended to be built on tech nodes deep in enemy territory, to delay their capture of the tech node.

[edit]
Dang! I just twigged why you cant have a non-command structure on a tech node. If your primary CC gets killed you would have no way to replace it...
[/edit]

This post has been edited by ChromeAngel: Apr 12 2009, 08:34 AM

[Ryse_Slade]

Also, there is no requirement for a 2nd Commander, ever. You can build a second Command Station and build in that room normally. They don't have to be linked either. Rooms with a built Command Station in them are always powered (until that Command Station is destroyed).

Maybe it's due to the power grid layout you have shown to us - and the real maps will be much larger with two or three times the resource nodes between tech points? - but what's the point in a power chain system if marines can just move to tech points, build their CC/RT there and move on. These tech points would be independend of each other and most neighbouring rooms would be connected to at least two tech points. I just don't see any tactical opportunities to break a power chain to slow/deny marine progress. I don't think this will break the game because NS1 works like that anyway but I just don't get it why even implement something like that if you can just pop a CC at a tech point making the whole chain system pointless.

Example given:
Marines start in the top center tech point and capture the left and right tech points in the middle. All adjacent RT rooms in the middle/upper part of the map but one are directly linked to a tech point thus making them unbreakable. If this is the way it is supposed to work marines would always strive to capture these tech points => always the same choke points in a map limiting the tactical choices.

That being said I would suggest to at least require a power chain while building a new CC. Aliens could break a power chain before the CC is done building and destroy it.