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i rather not have this. even if it got moved to upcoming there's just so much testing and such which has to be done. imho the current system is fine

opened by request of digz for more discussion.

Thankyou, I felt this was wrongfully closed, and I think it's one of the most solid plans to come out of I&S in a while.

It shouldn't take that much balancing either way, it's still the same game, but instead of randomly getting a hive you get the hive you want every time. As if it would be any less devistating to a marine team if you get the hive you want in a random game. If anything this would make map balancing easier for mappers, as they will get way better feedback of what is right and wrong with each hive.

Instead of just adding this choose your own hive option to an existing command like tournament mode, why don't you make it a new option? Make it cl_randomhive 0 or 1. 1 would be the default. Options are best if you ask me.

I agree with the orginal post. This would improve things more than it would hurt - and we all know the maps arn't going to be fixed anytime soon to balance all hives equally on all maps - so this should should be considered.

one thing though, whats the point of even scouting on the marine team then, either the aliens picked the best hive, or they gimped themselves by picking an inferior hive.

part of natural selection is the suspense it creates and it just wouldn't be the same without those first few moments in the game when you are wondering where the aliens are at.

Clearly it is a matter of strategy rather than chance, then.

but without chance there is less strategy

chance is the unexpected variable that can force teams to come up with a new gameplan on the spot, or adapting their tactics, by making it so teams can pick a hive they are getting rid of the chance behind their starting points and severly limiting the tactical options of the game, if you think games get repetitive with 3 hives you get randomly assigned from, imagine playing natural selection with just 1 hive.

read the first post, all of it. not just the title.

randomness= LESS strategy, not more. how is that so hard to understand. and how is it even harder to read MP_TOURNAMENTMODE 1 ONLY

I like this idea. It adds more possibilities of different strategies depending on which hive you choose, and would prevent that the outcome of a match be influenced when one team gets the worst hive and the other gets a good one.

I don't think this change would cost much, at least give it a try in tournament mode, it will be welcomed by many players.

randomness does not mean less strategy, it just means you have to be ready to adapt your tactics.

the key word there is adapt

If your going to let aliens choose their starting hive, let marines choose where they want to start.

if i want randomness for some reason ill play a public game, but in clan wars you often say "ok if hive is this then we do this, if not then we do that" as aliens.

its useless and frustrating, it'd be much easier to just choose the hive according to which chamber youre going for. some tactics only work with a specific hive.

The maximum ammout of strategey allowed by the random hive system has already been explored. Most clanners know the best nodes to drop for each hive of any well played map. Certain hives work well for different chamber starts, others don't, the risk means everyone goes the safest path the majority of the time (MSD). Allowing teams to choose thier hive would potentially allow for more elaborate schemes and stratigies. If you are expected to choose a certain hive but choose a different one you might be able to change the balance of power in your favor.

As it stands hives are instantly scouted by the comm by dropping ammo packs anyways, so the current system sucks anyways. It's a surprize to the aliens which hive they have much more then it a surprize to the marines.

Hm randomness is better?
Then why the hell are we still able to pick our first and second chambers?

RANDOM CHAMBER FTW!

see? randomness sucks...same for hives


For the "every game same hive" comment...well it was the same thing with DMS...

noob clans will always choose the "easiest" hive without thinking. This will be very predictable and many commanders will start to use tactcis for exactly this scenario.

So...one better clan decides one day to use a different hive, perhaps combined with a specific tactic/chamber. And wow...marine sget totally pwned since their whole plan is for the ****

I really think that this could happen!

SentrySteve:

Strategys currently have to be versitile and able to account for all hives e.g. they can't be as detailed as positioning accuratly as for each hive, different positions need controling.

Because of this most teams will basicly have 1 set start strategy for each map. This 1 strategy is able to fit in all 3 hives. If they strategy's became any more detailed they would be overcomplicated and most likely someone would get a 1 start hive strat confused with another.

If the start hive can be controled, teams will be able to form COMPLETELY different strategy's for each hive.. one hive could work for a DC lock down in a crucial position that another hive couldnt, where the other hives would use positioned MC's or set ambush locations.

Yes you are right, the "making decisions on the spot" thing would be reduced slightly as you say but decisions will still NEED to be made, these decisions don't depend on the hive the aliens start with, they depend on the marines actions!

If you choose your hive you would have a FAR wider spectrum of starting tactics developed for each map, each one of these would still need to adapt through the course of a round depending on marines decisions and so on.

There would be MORE strategys evolved as they can have FAR more detail without overcomplicating people due to "possible hives". These tactics would be far more involved and would create FAR more interesting games.

I know what your saying, but chance WILL still be a factor.. the thing is, people at the moment go out of their way to make chance have as SMALL a factor as possible. They have suceeded quite well in this as the start tactics will be so versatile that starting hive doesnt overly effect their game. The chance currently exists in the actions later of both teams, this "chance" will still exhist and perhaps have more possibilities due to the number of more involved tactics.

The entire clan community makes one simple rule change for an idea and is ignored. Okay.

why was this moved to I&S

where should it be?

it was posted here, no need for moving...

Lump; SentrySteve was being sarcasitc about Crazysteve having more experience than us. That is why he posted a link to "Understand sarcasm is a complex business."

Sarcasm is SentrySteve's way of coping with the world.

i agree with nge's original post entirely

i haven't read the rest of the thread

i also agree with nge's idea.

i think it's a good idea...
i mean, hell, people like secrurity in what will happen...
tell me, if you were moving house and they had a monkey in a room full of buttons, and each button represented a house, and the first button it pushed indicated where you where moving to, would you be very happy?



so TAKE IT!!!

I wish it could extend beyond tourney mode though. It's such a good idea that it should be in standard ns. Here's how you do it, at the beginning of the round when there's the pinging sounds a vote goes up for which hive. Everyone votes before the game starts after what, 5 seconds is that pinging for? Seems like it would work to me. Just make it another option.

make the option votable itself, along with tourneymode and friendly fire.

once every round a vote can be started -and only one time- and the people can vote those three things in one run

public isnt designed to be organised at all, people conflict etc its just a waste of time that wouldnt reach its potential as people would pick the most common hive (as they cant put more thought and organisation into unique hive's tactics) It would just not work correctly imo.

If it was going to be on public it'd just be a plugin thing.

There are 2 important goals involved in how you want to solve this problem.
1.) You want tournaments not to be so arbitrary as getting a bad hive deal and losing. If one team gets a better hive than another it gives them an advantage, regardless of whether the other team can adapt.

2.) You dont want to fix down the hive location because this eliminates the need for scouting and recon, which is essential to NS gameplay.

Also as goal, you also want to keep the game basically balanced.

So, while I think NGE makes a good point, my issue with that is that it gives the aliens a tremendous advantage over the way it is now just in general. Being able to avoid the crap draw and in general having more control over the game means that in general aliens will win more often. This is bad.

Here's this for an idea: Maybe the aliens should get to vote against a hive, and then the rines should also get to vote against a hive. That irons out alot of the advantage the aliens get from this.

Still, I'm not sure I like that solution the best myself because there of issues, like the rines voting against middle hive every time and then just rushing to lock it down. They should have to do reconnassiance. This violates goal #2.

It is unfair when you get nerfed in tourneys, so maybe what they should do for that case is you have to play every hive at least once, maybe in random order or something. Or maybe you have to play just 2 different hives. I think if you can win with 2 different hives, that clearly shows that its not just poor map balancing screwing you.

Still i think it is clear that randomness is not altogether desirable in tournaments. For those of you who are mappers, you will know that the trigger_random entity, which is used to create random events in a map at random times, also has a "balanced_target" field. In tournaments the randomness is eliminated and this field is used to pick the target. The developers certainly admit that total randomness is not the best thing to have in tournament play.

The issue, I think, is that randomness doesnt make it a fair comparison when one team gets a screwy hive and the other doesnt. Steps should be taken to correct that, and to do it in a way that does not allow the aliens to have a substantial advantage by picking their own hive directly, and that also does not give the rines extra information or eliminate the need for recon. I am not exactly sure how to best go about this, but:

I think the easiest solution is just to play more games in tournament matches. The randomness will largely become ironed out when you play more games, and this preserves the balance and recon issues.

this is ignoring a lot of the reasons behind wanting a chosen hive. please read other threads.