I don't have a specific, neatly organized idea here as I am looking for us to collaborate on the brainstorming of ideas here. That's why this topic is going here in General Discussion and not the I&S.

define:: "Armory Humping" verb, progressive tense
the action of a player on the marine team in Natural-Selection wherein the subject stands near (or stands on) the armory and wastes time loading up on ammuntion when they need to be following orders.
(screenshot needed here)

What this topic is NOT

• A debate on whether you think armory humping is a problem or not
• An opportunity for you to flame the humper that annoys you the most (or any other forum trolling for that matter)
• A debate on how much it is a problem

What this topic is

• Answering the topic's title's question in how you feel it should be solved or reduced, and then defending your argument
• Debate on whether it can be actually solved or just reduced
• Analysis in "persuasive architecture"; meaning how design can influence behavior (and how to implement that)

Try to remember:

• This is for NS2, not NS v3.2
• Treat this as a professional discussion

Thank you for your time,

x5

What to do to prevent armory humping in NS2?

Hmm...

How about changing the armory into a kind of meta space? How do I put this, it would be like, separate its roles because it fills two different roles right now as I see it:
1) Equipment Loadout
2) Resupply

As I see it, I think the nature of a marine selecting their own equipment loadout, changes things enough that it might be worth letting a marine step into something, I imagine a phased portal door opening that a marine could step into the armory on what I imagine would be the marine space ship that came to the map's location and see all the possible equipment on the wall, some of the stuff would be just a flashing hologram with the words like "need design program" or something that conveys the Commander needs to 'research' the designs for it, maybe even showing if its being researched. Point click graphical loadout. When a player's marine character steps out of the armory, they look like however they wanted to. In my imagination, the comforting imagery and sense of stepping out of the regular play would be something a new player would easily grasp and veterans could use speedily.

Then, in terms of resupply, IMHO, marines should have to carry a backpack or something, that would do that instead of the immobile armory structure. Let another player gain the kudos for 'I love you, you got me the med pack/ ammo pack!' ... in addition, the Kharaa get another moving target - sorta like in TF2, target the medic first, in NS1 (and hopefully NS2 more-so) you really did want to take out the welder, then it would be easier to take out the next one up the chain ... anyone else notice TF2 spy is kinda like playing a NS1 Kharaa skulk? Anyways, I think that is something else that should go from the realm of the Commander to the realm of the grunt Marine - then other marines can hump another marine, yay teamwork! Yes, laugh, but realize it could be yet another cool reason to stick with the buddy system that makes up teamwork in a FPS - IMHO, rambos/lone rangers shouldn't get medical/ammunition support nigh automatically as currently happens. Story-wise, you could say the nano-grid is a bit gimped now thanks to the infestation, its gone all dynamic and evolved to counter med/ammo pack drops.

Prevent armory humping?

1. Eliminate the armory - give a set amount of ammo with each weapon.

2. Decrease the time required to get ammo.

3. Appeal to the intelligence of players through tooltip-like messages. (Bad idea, because players don't necessarily like to read.)

The problem is that the armory plays an important role in NS as a bottleneck for marine development, albeit mostly only in public servers - in competitive servers the commander knows that time is important and often sacrifices resources whenever possible to save time.

If armory humping is really "that bad" then its prevention is really through these 3 options - find better ways to slow down the marine team if this is really necessary from a developer perspective.

Good ideas thus far.

My initial, impulse idea was a simple, "Why not just give you full ammo when you press use once? Eliminate the time needed to hold down the use key to get full ammo altogether."

Resultant Behavior: no need to hump when you can get it all at once

*** NOTE: Your current magazine wouldn't be magically refilled, you would still have to reload once when finished -- just your spare ammunition. ***

Cons?

Right now using the armory is a tradeoff. Time invested vs. time spent. You'll want an extra pack if you're traveling far or might run in into an OC.

Even though this is solely a pub problem maybe the answer can add depth to the game.

The armory should have a "power bar" like the obs. The ammo packs dropped while the bar has enough energy are free.
- commanders will be persuaded to drop more ammo packs, since they're "free"
- good commanders can manage their resflow better
- multiple amories, encouraging decoys, maybe opening up armories to have specific paths, ie one path for flamethrower, another for heavy weapons
- marines don't worry about ammo so much because comms drop it and won't feel the need to hump

- the armoury spawns a ghost from Bubble Bobble , the one ghost that appears when you take too long - if it touches you, you're dead.
- a sheep dog appears in one of the IP's and proceeds to chase everyone out of marine spawn
- bouncers in HA forcibly remove you from the base

seriously , i think the simplest thing would be, that a player that is amoury humping will be labelled as an amoury humper in the commanders view - that way the commander knows not to drop that player any weapons or items, since they don't deserve it.

ooh i do quite like the power bar solution above from locally too

spawn with full ammo as well as weapons dropped by the com (if they are dropped) recieve full ammo to begin with. Also add a key to be able to drop ammo so that u can move faster.

Demonstrate clearly that heavy ammo load slow you down, both humping and movement wise. Depending on NS2 mechanics of course.

Erm. Didn't Charlie/Max already specify that they would be changing the way that players get new weapons? From what they said it sounded to me like they already had a good idea of the direction they were going in for this.

spawn with ammo reservoir- which slowly recharges - recharge is slow enuth to punish marines that waste ammo but not so slow that marines hardly ever shoot. amoury becomes redundant as an ammo dispenser but marines can still either pay for or comm pays for ammo packs if they need ammo quick

As prevously state ammoury humping is a trade off between speed and ammo supply. often speed is necessary for an assult hence everyone getting angry when its all too slow.

Im only tempted to amoury hump on pubs when the comm keeps ignoring players or abandons us for good or evil. If the comm is going to control ammo pack purchases in ns2 this wont be a problem

Why do we need to irritate players with armory powerbars or complicate commanding? There's a difference between giving ammo packs to 6 players in a competitive game versus 10-16 players on a pub. The resources required are 2-3 times greater.

Regenerating ammo? How do we define what rate of firing is "too careless" or "too conservative"? It's going to depend on the map, the alien team, and vary throughout the round.

I say keep it simple.

Or not: Create an "assault mode" that can be triggered by the commander (perhaps on an armory) which informs the team (with that annoying female voice) that they should proceed to the designated waypoint and that the armory is disabled.

How would it irritate players? If you don't have enough in your "power-bar" you pay full price of one res per ammopack. That's it. Of course the resources required to drop ammopacks for a larger team are more. A larger team requires more shotguns, more healthpacks, more everything. If you think it's worth it you drop more armories to try to get more free ammopacks. You have to weigh the cost of the extra armories vrs. the savings of the free ammopacks. That's what commanding is all about, cost benefit analysis. If you're a new comm who doesn't know what's worth it and what's not you're not going to care about the armory power bar, you're going to drop ammo when you feel like it.

Okay - an easy way to find problems with your own idea is to criticize it yourself instead of defending it. Put yourself in the shoes of players and commanders that might have to deal with it.

I imagine that you have commanding experience. If you do, you'll know that your time is spent moving all over the place to keep track of marines, resources, alien development, attacks on hives, defense of base, etc. etc. Keeping track of resources is also important. Now, as busy as commanders already are, with your idea they will also have to keep track of a powerbar on an armory that will start charging full price for ammo packs once it runs out. It would be irritating to see your resources get drained by 5 players getting ammo packs - that's 5 resources a second (assuming 1 res per ammo pack).

Consider that commanding is already complex as it is. Adding this idea will just make the job more stressful because you have to babysit marines that want to waste your res by armory humping.

And why, as a commander, would you want to drop more armories to prevent ammo packs costing resources? 1. That would just promote armory humping. 2. There would be nothing to stop players from using the armory whose power bar runs out.

As it is already, commanders sometimes solve the armory humping problem by recycling the armory at their base. The only con to this (besides whiny players who haven't got a clue) is that upgraded armory status is lost.

My goal isn't to make comming as easy as possible. I want anyone to be able to hop in a and do a decent job, but "good" comming to take practice and make the comm think. To that extent a power-bar is a great fit. It can be ignored by new players and maximized by those who want to get the most out of the their resources.

Your criticisms seem predicated on the idea that comming should always be easy. I suggest you read some of the sirlin article Radix linked in one of his recent posts to try and see my point of view.

The way to stop armory humping is by changing the armory to be more like the dispenser from TF2, in that it regenerates ammo rapdily when you stand near it, without you having to use it. Also, reduce the maximum ammo, and make people spawn with maximum ammo, so they're ready to go from the moment they spawn and pick their weapon.

The reason alot of people humped the armory in NS1 was because you didn't spawn with maximum ammo, even if the amount of ammo you spawned with was nearly always more than enough anyway.

You're solving one problem and creating another there.

The reason Marines don't spawn with maximum ammo is because 1 good Marine can take out 2-3 Skulks (more if they're really good) before having to reload. Right now a Marine pushing a Hive early just to hinder the Aliens' reinforcement rate needs support from the comm for ammo and health, but definitely ammo. This means resources must be spent to keep him in that position, or time must be wasted getting free ammo from the armoury.

If Aliens weren't allowed to expand across the map and reach key areas in the early game their progress would be severely reduced. Right now it makes sense that the Marines have to spend res to attempt to deny them map control. If a Marine spawned with enough ammo to take out 10+ Skulks the game would really suffer because of it.

Explain?


Agreed.


I can't remember whose idea this was, but.. Use 'icons' to represent common in-game terminology, ie. the icons would replace certain words and it would streamline the reading of tooltips and take less space, ie. be less obtrusive.

*shrug* I only got this far. I'll read the rest tomorrow. 'night.

I actually read the Sirlin article back when NS was still version 2.0. You're now completely ignoring the points that I have raised: commanding is already difficult as it is for players to learn it and do it well - there are very few descent commanders, let alone good ones, that I have ever seen in NS. Adding another thing to keep track of that can potentially ruin your resource management plan is not necessary or desirable. It would just make the commander role even more stressful than it already is. Yes - good commanders can accommodate the powerbar feature - but why is it necessary to make the role even more difficult than it already is? All we want to do here is prevent armory humping.

Someone has already suggested that kit bags be introduced into the game, so that instead of meds being dropped a kit bag can be dropped with a first-aid box or something in it and the designated marine heals his comrades.

Well if this was introduced maybe if could have say... 10 ammo packs in it and the person with the kit bag just switchs to kit and pressed left click to slowly heal like the wall units on HL1 or right click to give 1 ammo pack to someone.
(this would make it so Armourys could only be used to refill kit bags and not for individual use of marines)

Just an idea......

Thanks for reading,

Jester.

For NS1, armory humping with LMGs is almost always a bad idea unless you plan to spend a lot of time shooting buildings. You spawn with enough starting ammo to (normally) last you until you die while fighting aliens. There are exceptions of course, but that's what ammo packs are for.

By contrast, armory humping with heavy weapons is virtually a necessity, as heavy weapons spawn with no spare ammunition at all. A commander who drops a set of shotguns for his marine team has the choice of watching the entire team delay attacking for 10 seconds as they get ammo, or spending an extra 4 or 5 res per gun to make sure his marines can reload.

Now, suppose you changed this somehow for NS2 so heavy weapons carriers wouldn't have to waste time getting ammo at base. This changes strategic options somewhat, as that extra 10 seconds of deployment speed can be very important in such a fast paced game. This doesn't mean the idea is worthless, just that the strategic impact has to be considered for balance.

Suppose newly dropped weapons spawned with a full clip and 2 reloads, and the price was increased slightly to compensate. Just like that, you have removed the need for armory humping for pretty much anyone not wearing proto-tech. Of course, if what you're worried about is players who don't NEED extra ammo but want to waste time on it anyway, then I'm not sure what could be done about that. Reducing their need for ammunition is pointless if they already don't need any more.

Balance in pubs is already so convoluted that the system should be re-evaluated anyway. NS was balanced for 6v6 games, not 16v16.

Spawn with full ammo, you rarely die because you didnt have enough reserve ammo. Then balance for the res related issues with the new res system.

The simplest solution is usually the best.


"Why do I even respond to some of these threads."

I think your points are completely blown out of proportion. A new comm can completely ignore it to no detriment. He'll get a few ammopacks for free and won't undestand why. That's hardly "potentially ruining your resource management plan". It's not making the role any more difficult, you still have to keep track of how much you spend now. It provides a tool for good commanders to manage their resflow better.

Gah... it provides an extra barrier for new commanders. It's when the resources start to run low that it's going to get irritating. And how is this going to stop armory humping? "Comm! Battery on armory is low - we've humped it so much that now ammo packs aren't free anymore. Start dropping us ammo packs so we don't hump anymore and cost you even more resources."

keep the ammo dispensing armory function in, but make it so that a player receives full ammo at the cost of 1 res (the PLAYERS choice)

My idea is this, all players "spawn" with the obligatory 3 clips (1 loaded, 2 reserved)

as an upgrade at the armory for the commander to determine to do, he can choose to UPGRADE a players spawning ammo reservoir. Lets say 10 res to spawn with 25 more bullets every upgrade

therefore you can upgrade theoretically (assuming the amount of ammo from NS1 carries over into NS2) 6 times so that every player spawns with full ammo, that way players have no need for armory humping unless they run out and manage to find themselves back at base. Bam, spend 1 res and you have 250 more bullets available.

comms would still be able to drop ammo packs as needed

I think I like Gauss' idea.

Kinda complex solution for a simple and minor problem. I'd say you either spawn with enough of ammo or you clearly explain people that you don't need that many ammo. If someone is able to blast skulks for 150 ammo without dying, I'm more than happy dropping him some more. If the commander isn't quick enough to drop more, hump the armory.

Simple and I like it except the fact that good marines will probably unload 1-2 clips after spawning in and leaving base to be faster, which seems kinda disturbing to the game-atmosphere/mood and game experience.

So I rather think there should be either more information/in-game hints for new players or make full ammo'd marines just a way slower than they are used to be.

Well, this wouldn't eliminate armory-humping early game, but maybe for mid-late game.

Maybe have an upgrade available at the armory to make any respawning marines start with more ammo. That way, maybe players wont feel the need to spawn, then proceed right to the armory.

One person said......and another said...
...and still another said......which are all about starting with full ammunition @ spawn.

Pro: Solves issues with needing any additional ammunition to start since you are already at the maximum

Pro: It is definitely following KISS policy. (Keep It Simple, Stupid)

Con: Ignores the resupply benefit of the armory
EXAMPLE: When I command (talking NS, not NS2) and I need to hold an area -- like building up a phase gate for a siege. I'll drop an armory. Why? Because 5 ammo/medkits (at 2 res each) = 1 armory at 10 res, but with one critical difference. The armory can provide UNLIMITED health and ammo for my teammates.

Neutral: FPS games with limited ammunition weapons have an important game play balance factor in that the max ranged damage that is carried.

EXAMPLE: Ok, let's say this hypothetical "gun" fires bullets which do 10 damage each @ 800 rounds/min in full-auto, with a magazine size of 40 rounds.

Your max capacity is then is 1 mag loaded, 5 carried, and one bullet already in the chamber. (many FPS games are too lazy to do this)

Spawning with 1 magazine loaded and 1 spare, no bullet in chamber
10(40(1)) + 10(40(1)) + 10(0) = 800 total ranged damage carried per spawning soldier

--versus--

Spawning with 1 magazine loaded and 5 spare mags, and bullet in chamber
10(40(1)) + 10(40(5)) + 10(1) = 2410 total ranged damage carried per spawning soldier

There is a major difference here, more than three times as much! Consider that weapon upgrades in NS v3.2 add an additional 10% of the base damage. (in this case the damage multiplier would go 10 (base), 11 (lvl 1), 12 (lvl 2), 13 (lvl 3))

Now could that be considered in balancing? Of course it could, but it should not be ignored.

More playtester-ish problem solving questions:

BONUS QUESTION #1: What's the difference in time for the two mentioned above marines to fire off every round?
POSSIBLE REASON FOR CONSIDERATION: balanced against HP & Armor of a target unit or structure

BONUS QUESTION #2: Assuming a reload time of 4.2 seconds; what is the minimum # of marines needed to stagger firing to create a continuous barrage of fire on a single target.
POSSIBLE REASON FOR CONSIDERATION: cover fire balance

It's a good simple idea, but everybody needs to remember that it's far more complex than that. And that's just in-theory, before it gets used in practice.

vote undecided

It seems this is fairly popular but I feel it needs to stand up to some well-thought-out criticism.



This is my favorite solution proposed thus far.

• It's simple.
• It allows for a trade off which players are free to choose their own balance on. (fire power vs. mobility)
• It supports an element of realism (more mass)
• It would be easy to adjust when testing to get it to feel subtle. (not too cumbersome, not too insignificant)
• Reinforces the antithetical behaviors ranged vs. melee in combat
• It allows for individual specialization in squads (the packmule, heavy support grunt vs. the ninja, recon badarse)

I would want it tipped more towards the subtle to insignificant side. It does wonders if it's something people just gossip about and has psychological presence about it. Perhaps there could even be researchable upgrades to reduce it and allow marines to carry more ammo.

vote yes


Regeneration ammo is something Charlie has said he would never put in NS2 because it makes marines too close to aliens. (aliens do have regeneration, both in "ammo" (energy bar) and health & armor, and also have upgrades to improve those regenerations)

vote no

Good point about the resource cost scalability increase with the number of players in a game, but I'm not sure what that has to do with this topic.


Well it could create some unique specialization in squads with a healer class. It was my impression that this was another differentiation factor between the marines and the aliens:

Commander heals fellow marines
Gorges heal fellow aliens

I'm not sure if you were just quoting my post for fun or if you actually thought I was suggesting regenerating ammo. If it was the latter, you got the wrong post.

The point about the resources has to do with locallyunscene's powerbar suggestion of implementing powerbars on armories - the idea doesn't prevent armory humping and has the potential of causing problems with resource consumption from armory humping.

I still think that an armory lockdown option would work best for commanders. When commanders want marines to stop armory humping, they can disable to armory (select the armory and click a button that disables it but does not recycle it). When this happens, marines who try to hump the armory will be informed that the armory is disabled and that they should proceed to the assigned waypoint.

But the lock down feature could get abused easily couldn't it?

Apparently what I was saying about the powerbar wasn't clear. Marines don't "regenerate" ammo I don't think anyone has suggested that yet, Scribbles mentioned regen in the form TF2 has, where you don't have to hit use on the armory just stand near it.

The implementation I'm trying to get across is marines getting ammo from the armory has NO effect on the powerbar, that part works the same. The powerbar is only for dropping ammopacks. The ammopacks dropped while the powerpar has enough energy are free. Instead of preventing players from humping the armory I'm taking the route of encouranging commanders to drop more ammopacks, thus eliminating the root cause of humping. If the marines think they can rely on their comm for ammo they won't bother with the armory.

Is that clearer?

Ah yes it is. Thanks. And yes I know you weren't suggesting ammo regen Sarisel, I just wanted to make it publicly clear to everyone here that idea is scrubbed before is even suggested outright.

This is turning into a good discussion; thanks & keep it up!

It could be - but that's why there's an eject option, right? This is an off-topic note: it would help if the eject-vote initiator got to type a reason for why the vote is being called.




Clearer doesn't cut it - it sounds like a completely different idea altogether that I wouldn't have been arguing against.

Edit: regenerating ammo was suggested by invader Zim, hence my response to it

Not a problem, cured with playtime and hours logged.

No prevention necessary.

HAHA, if you want you can go back and read my orig post with that new understanding, I haven't edited it. Your criticisms make a lot more sense now.

This brings up a few bad scenarios.

When you are being attacked in your spawn and your Comm is desperately trying to save for a beacon, just one or two guys resupplying from zero (costing 1-2 res) can delay this and potentially lose the game because an important structure goes down.

---

But my main gripe with this is that experienced Commanders just won't get these upgrades, they will use the resources on more important things and spend resources on players who won't waste the ammo. The only way this ammo upgrade would work is if Comm ammo-drops were removed from the game (which is something I'd love to see, incidentally).

It's been said before, but really the absolute best way to solve this problem is not with convoluted upgrade systems, or power bars, but with player healing and resupply items that, if dropped, can be picked up by anyone else and be administered to anyone by anyone. This would remove all of the unneccessary twitch medpacking that makes learning the Commander so hard to begin with, and allow the Comm to focus on commanding instead of babysitting.

I think if ammo packs were removed we'd have a lot of frustrated players without ammo. Especially at hives far away from base.

The simplest, and possibly best, way to solve this problem is to have marines spawn with full ammo. That addresses the problem directly. The reason I suggested an ammopack(and that is "ammopack" which is dropped by the commander, as distinguished from simply "ammo" which you get from the armory) powerbar was to take the fix beyond the purview of only armory humping.

when has this ever been a problem outside of people who do everything else wrong too

How many people do this right? In my experience, too many people do everything wrong. Might as well give players a hand so that they can be a little bit less annoying.

last time i heard someone complain about this was 2.0

theorcraftX

Indeed.


--and creates a new one, no? As I tried explaining earlier in this thread (previous page at bottom), since the marines fire ranged weapons with finite quantities of ammunition, it means they are carrying more damage. Could this be balanced? If you gave structures and players armor classes with different values for damage reduction (i.e.: Warcraft III and Starcraft II for example, some armor is better at resisting one type of damage but have vulnerabilities to other type)


Exactly! Well said Sarisel.

If you spawn with full ammo, you can't ghost jump.

1.25x speed > 2 resources

Why not give the commander the ability to De-activate an armory, and when players try to engage the armory it will replay the commander's message, "There is no time, move to your waypoint soldier".

Then there would be no armory humping when the commander didn't want it.

If the armory is shutdown, there could be a "warmup" process before it's turned on again. this is to prevent flicking the armory on/off.

It's extremely simple, just double the amount of ammo it gives now.

Hey, that's not bad.

I didnt read all the posts but couldnt you give the commander the ability to shutdown the armory during a hive rush? This would also give the players another reason to critique commanding skills and be a cause havoc. Which in my opinion is the greatest attribute of the game.

Yea, it seems simply.. but when I think about it more.. I come to this conclusion..


If marines were able to get ammo faster, by average..they'd live longer because of the extra ammunition. Giving the marines a huge advtange early in the game..

I think for NS 2 the team should find a sweet spot for how fast/much ammo the armory gives out, then give the comm the ability to shut down the armory to keep the balance..

I don't necessarily think it will make marines live longer, if I want full ammo reserve clips then I will wait until it's full, be it if that takes 10 seconds or 5. If anything it wouldn't make them live longer but be able to leave the base faster which, in comparison to the huge speed advantage aliens have already wouldn't make all to much of a difference. And there has been plenty of times when I had full ammo and got killed relatively fast so all that extra ammo didn't help me live longer at all, if anything just had me waste more time getting all of it.