u/AmuseDeath

Matching used to take maybe 10-30 seconds, now it's taking 10-20 minutes to find a game. Think they made a change and it screwed something up. Posting for awareness.

Seems like some people are okay with the mod, others really do not like the mod.

My mind is that I don't really mind it that much, but at the same time, I don't see the goal of the mod. It adds more content, like there is more life forms, guns, buildings, but I don't think the game really needs it to be better? Also the upgrade choices are weird like Focus seems to be terrible now to the point where it gets me killed, Carapace is removed and there's some odd upgrades like Rage or something. Units like the Pulse(?) EXO just seem weird and inferior to the original EXO choices.

I guess other than more content, I fail to see what CBM does better. Like I appreciate the work put into the mod and that we have people that are diehard to make content for an old game, but I personally don't see how it makes the OG game better.

I think the biggest hurdle for new players to the game is the massive amount of knowledge required to understand the game to play it better. It's about getting familiar with the maps, the resource-focused gameplay, the combat that involves fast-movement and accuracy and quick deaths, the understanding of things like phase gates, power nodes, etc. I don't think CBM makes the game easier to play and instead adds even more complexity (Fortress Crag?, SMG?).

It adds more content, but I think many of the top players like the game as-is. I guess it is nice for the veterans who play on a more casual level.

Again, I think the main issue with the game is player retention for new players, so anything that makes learning the game easier is the goal here. My personal take is that casual servers should introduce health bars for players that would make new players better able to prioritize targets instead of a new player trying to kill an Onos by himself with his level 0 LMG. Nearly every competitive game that has long TTK uses these whether it is MOBA games like League, team-based games like Overwatch/Rivals, fighting games obviously and of course NS2's inspiration, RTS games like Starcraft or Warcraft.

It would help new players to deal with seemingly invincible aliens like Fades or Onos mainly as Marines and Skulks die too fast for health bars to matter. I think the main issue for new players is really dealing with Onos in casual games. They aren't sure whether to press the Onos or not as they don't want to lose their expensive JP and gun because they don't have an idea of how much health the Onos has. New players err on the side of caution, so they let Onos get away more than they should which allows aliens to stack Onos until they win. And before we get into the entire argument about theme and stuff, new players will never think oh man players have health bars, the theme is gone; that's some silly argument that doesn't make sense. They are more trying to figure the game out. Lastly, we already have health bars on structures, so it already exists in the game already. If you're going to argue that player health bars aren't thematic... try and argue how structure health bars are suddenly thematic.

So yea, I think in casual 10v10 servers, the best thing to help new players is to reintroduce health bars which will help players mainly deal with Onos which is from my experience how 99% of casual games end (rookie level players). You can turn them off at high level 10v10s or comp 6v6s. I get it. But for rookie servers, I think health bars are a good idea because it helps players focus their attacks which helps them play better and it gives feedback. It makes players feel like their shots are doing something. As far as mid-level 10v10s go, you could probably keep them off or on depending on how the server feels about it. I'd probably give it a test on these servers and if it it makes marines dominate way too much like 60/40, maybe keep them off, but if balance is still around 50/50, I think it's fine to keep them on; it would still help newer players playing on better servers.

Anyways, not to sidetrack here, but yea I don't understand the main goal of CBM other than more content. I personally don't think the game really needs more content and I'm happy with what the game currently has. I think more content makes the game bloated and more complicating. I don't think more content makes the game necessarily better or fixes anything. But again, I do want to acknowledge the hardwork modders have done to make this stuff.

I think the most pressing thing is having new players understand the game and have a good time so they keep playing. I think new players mostly want to play Marines and they mostly lose because they don't know how to lane and watch the map. I think Onos becomes way too strong against new players because they again can't accurately assess how damaged an Onos is. I think health bars for new players would be helpful in this situation, but again it can be turned off in high level 10v10s or comp 6v6s.

But other than that, I think vanilla NS2 is perfectly fine with the pattern of aliens being extremely dominate at the lower ends of play and marines being very strong as players get better, mainly due to better decision-making by marines and better accuracy - two thing completely non-existent at lower skill levels. With that said, I'm perfectly fine for CBM to exist, I just don't see what issue it is trying to solve other than being more of a party-mode. I don't see huge balance problems in the vanilla game that warrants a lot of these changes.

We don't want Glaive Throwers somehow attacking air, Scout Owls exploding and doing AoE damage or Far Sight essentially being free. These ideas are creating more problems that are untested and will require more work from the developers to properly balance the game.

What needs to happen is a better understanding of what the biggest issues of the game are and what are the easiest solutions that would have the biggest effect.

We need to slow it down with the suggestions as well as the insane ones and honestly look at what are the main issues of the game and how can we make units that don't work effectively, to work better and do their role in the game.

My background is that I've suggested many ideas that have gone through into the game. I've suggested that we remove the Graveyard requirement for Sacrificial Skull, which went through. I've suggested that we increase damage for Disease Cloud, yet reduce its duration, which went through. I suggested we increase movement speed for mechanical siege units, which also went through.

Anyways, my next point is about Elf and how many users in 1v1 feel they are stuck with Lore-tech which might be strong, but the other tech trees are not feasible. There are 3 main branches to Elf, Ancient of War, Ancient of Wind and Ancient of Lore. The current meta is to get to Ancient of Lore as fast as possible, so they can use Dryads and Bears. The reason why Elf players skip Ancient of War is because the units are simply inferior to Ancient of Lore units and their roles overlap. Bears and Dryads have so much utility that no other units are needed. You get DPS, healing, anti-magic, anti-air, slow-effect, sturdy units and incredible synergy with Staff of Preservation. You do not get any of these benefits by using Ancient of War units who quickly fall off and become obsolete. Ancient of Lore essentially makes Ancient of War unnecessary to the point where if both of these tech trees were open, 100 out of 100 players would choose Lore.

So what would the purpose of Ancient of War be? As said before, if you can use Lore, you would take it over War 100 out of 100 times. So the only time War would make sense is if Lore-tech (Bears) was not available, meaning at tiers 1 and 2. This makes Ancient of War a time-dependent strategy, meaning it is trying to do huge damage or end the game early on. You are effectively choosing Ancient of War OVER Ancient of Lore. But if a game is likely to get to tier-3, it makes no sense to use Ancient of War when the upsides of Lore-tech are vastly higher.

The bottom line is that Lore-tech essentially invalidates War-tech because it does what it does better and it has way more benefits. It's just how it is and how it will always be because that's how the game designers designed Elf. The only role War-tech has is early game strength and so any buffs would be to help Ancient of War units do better early on. The reason why we see Crypt Fiends and Ghouls used in UD even at tier-3 is because UD's tier-3 units have giant holes. Ghouls provide fast-moving DPS that Aboms do not and Fiends are the go-to anti-air for UD with Web. Dryads and Bears in the meantime basically do it all to the point where other units are not needed.

What are my suggestions then? As said before, help War-tech units be as effective as possible early on. So the easiest change I would say is to have all their upgrades available at tier-1 which would mean Improved Bows, Marksmanship and Moon Glaives. And yes, we should bring back glaive-bounce on structures. We can tweak research cost and times if it is too powerful, but we should allow Elf players to commit to a strong early game if they want over Lore-tech. This may be strong, but if we are accepting that no Elf will use War-tech units at tier-3, then it makes sense to make them as good as they can be early on. And again, we can really adjust costs and times if things look too strong.

This would allow Elf players to sit in a conundrum of either having a strong early game dominance which could be worth it or they can do the same thing they always do which is roam around until tier-3. It makes War-tech more enticing and that's the point.

Next, the air-game of Elf as well as the game is abysmal and that's mainly due to 3 units, the Batrider, the Flying Machine and the Gargoyle. The first two units are the main issue with the game. Anything that does splash damage and moves fast is an incredibly dangerous unit to have in a strategy game, particularly one where killing units gives you experience. Batriders are an incredibly toxic unit where at worst they are an AoE anti-air unit that gives 100% of the experience to Orc and gives opponents no chance to respond, OR they are massed and require players to teleport home or lose their entire base. It's a flying siege unit that you cannot approach by air. Flying Machines are also badly designed. They have the fastest movement speed in the game at 400, they have a ranged attack and they also do splash damage. They are literally the best anti-air units in the game and you cannot fight them with your own air units. They will literally beat any air unit. This isn't good for a strategy game.

My point about these two units is that they are far too strong and make using air units abysmal or almost impossible against those two races. It would be better for them to be more specific with their capabilities instead of being the one-stop unit that deals with all air. I want people to really look at these two units in particular. My personal suggestions would be to change the Batrider so that Unstable Concoction deals a daze-like effect (like when your ground units fall out of a dead Zeppelin) rather than be an unrespondable AoE attack. Orc would be forced to use other anti-air measures instead of using the one-stop Batrider.

I would change Flying Machines to do more single damage, but remove their AoE attack. This would make them focus on fighting smaller air units, but bigger ones would require the use of Dragonhawks.

Then lastly, we can tweak the Gargoyle to make it less dominating against Elf. It is probably stronger than it could be right now due to how strong the former two units are.

So anyways, the point is that I and others want Elf to have more viable strategies than just Lore-tech. I believe War-tech isn't used because Lore-tech is so much better, so buffing War-tech at tier-1 would give Elf players the option to commit to it which makes it more likely to be used more than just completely skipped because they want to rush Lore-tech. I also believe looking at 3 problematic units (Bat, Copter, Garg) and trying some changes would allow Elf to be able to try Wind-tech.

Summary:

• Improved Bow is available at tier-1 (cost and time can be adjusted for balance)

• Marksmanship is available at tier-1 (cost and time can be adjusted for balance)

• Moon Glaive is available at tier-1 (cost and time can be adjusted for balance)

• Glaives bounce on structures again

• Batrider Unstable Concoction deals no damage, but instead inflicts daze effect to enemies

• Flying Machine Flak Cannon removed, air-to-air damage increased

• Gargoyle can get nerfs if former two are changed (speed, damage, HP, etc.)