Balance Mod - Third Iteration

ryssk
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19 August 2014 - 19:58 CEST
rantology says
To those arguing that no one wanted this change and that lerks were fine, I can tell you there are many that did & agreed with it. It should have been done a long time ago because it makes early game lerks artificially stronger than they should be. Every single lerk player in premier I've spoken to approves of the change and many have wanted it for a while for reasons Tane has kindly written.

@Friskbit and others with concerns over transparency and responses here:

Speaking for myself personally, I try not to debate here on the forums. Which leads to a relatively minimal response count, mostly being updates, explanations and questions for feedback. I try to read every post and relay that to everyone in the cmod team and gather their feedback about issues & ideas posted here. From there it's a matter of rounding people up and directing the discussions to produce a result. It's also very draining for me personally to reply & debate every single idea brought up here, I'm not really keen on forum debates. But like I said I do read every single post and I try to relay everything brought up here to the compmod team.

I can say that if anyone has concerns about how their idea is being looked at or if you have any questions about transparency, you can message myself or any other compmod team member on steam or PM. We'd be happy to talk about it or answer any questions. Additionally, as always, the door to the internal compmod chatroom is also always open, but I'd ask that anyone requesting to join needs to be able to bring enthusiasm about theorycraft & game knowledge to contribute to the discussions there.


I dont think many disagrees with the changes, just the freaking noice... it's too loud on client side to play! Do i have to mute NS2 to be able to play it? Or are you guys implementing a soundbar that you can adjust to fix it?
rantology
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19 August 2014 - 20:04 CEST
When's the last time you've tried it? Dragon has adjusted the sound twice since the initial implementation. It shouldn't be very loud anymore on the client side.
ryssk
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19 August 2014 - 20:07 CEST
rantology says
When's the last time you've tried it? Dragon has adjusted the sound twice since the initial implementation. It shouldn't be very loud anymore on the client side.


Ah nice! Not for 2 days so :) I played last time on Sunday when there was like 5 modifications to it!
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19 August 2014 - 21:06 CEST
Personally, I just have a few questions. Who are exactly in this team dealing with the CompMod? And when I read all the feedbacks here, they're mostly given by people from Division 1, 2 & even 3. A premium match & those played by the other divisions are different from my point of view. That means, a lerk cannot be played in the same way depending of the division, and it counts for every relative stuff in NS2. Even if lately, divisions tend to get closer than before... Personal skill player I mean of course (since it is always the same players who play regardless of divisions).
“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Fiskbit
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19 August 2014 - 21:14 CEST
Cr4zy_: I can only speak for myself, but I have avoided providing more feedback than I have because the response or lack thereof doesn't seem worth the effort, as thinking through an idea and writing it up isn't free. I'm glad you've had a better experience suggesting things, but reading through the threads doesn't make that seem typical for others. The lack of transparency into why that is kills conversation, and it's difficult to expect a steady flow of posts in that environment. Unsurprisingly, that tends to make people speak up only when changes directly affect how they play the game.


rantology: That's a much more useful reply, so thank you. I understand that posting takes time and energy, and I'm glad that that chat is always available; it's an option I may take advantage of because it's probably faster and more productive than posting. However, keeping further discussion to private channels hides a lot of useful information from people, and posting even the gist of those internal discussions would be useful, even if in outline form with egregious typos. You could also try to get more of the team to make a few posts here and spread the load around, which could have a big impact.

I've been doing all this talking about feedback because it feels like the most pressing issue, but I think you guys would get an even bigger improvement from smaller updates, done weekly, and perhaps with some notice about what you intend to address in each upcoming patch. It would be a good source of data, as we'd be able to see how those few changes impact balance throughout the week. I hope this gets strong consideration.
Mega
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21 August 2014 - 11:48 CEST
The free key for the lerk your searching is the reload key (default R)

then about these private chats over steam instead of forum posts
or the teamspeak meetings

Please make some kind of log of these things so people could point with there fingers on the part they want to bring up also know they are not the only one with that thing.
(maybe a upvote system like the trello page would be good guys)


you can eigther do the talk about changes in IRC so you can post logs afterwards on the forum
or record the teamspeak chat like a twitch stream


afterwards people can copy the passage or hear it and stop the second they want to talk about
and bring it up here in a forum post or in the next IRC and Teamspeak conversation

like that it will be more transparent again what is going on.
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21 August 2014 - 12:41 CEST
Speaking from personal view here, i don't want to see an essay over why something was done, i just want more than a statement that something was changed, you did this with the googledoc to some extent in earlier versions. but it really doesn't need to that extensive.

something like..

- removed speed decay for lerk glide (explanation here)
+ added sound to lerk gliding to speeds of 6-12 (explanation)

etc..

edit: Mega's suggestion for reload could work? don't think it did anything worth while, at least i can't remember..
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21 August 2014 - 17:33 CEST
you can eigther do the talk about changes in IRC so you can post logs afterwards on the forum
or record the teamspeak chat like a twitch stream


afterwards people can copy the passage or hear it and stop the second they want to talk about
and bring it up here in a forum post or in the next IRC and Teamspeak conversation


There were several open TS3 balance team meetings that no one attended in the past.
Mega
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21 August 2014 - 20:28 CEST
Jekt says

There were several open TS3 balance team meetings that no one attended in the past.


Some people didnt had time but would have liked to be there
in that case they go look at the irc log or listen to the ts3 meeting on twitch


So they can refer to the parts they agree or disagree in the next irc talk/ts3 balance meeting or in a forum post.

(this at least gives them the chance to take somehow part about what was talked/typed there)
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22 August 2014 - 01:12 CEST
Jekt says
you can eigther do the talk about changes in IRC so you can post logs afterwards on the forum
or record the teamspeak chat like a twitch stream


afterwards people can copy the passage or hear it and stop the second they want to talk about
and bring it up here in a forum post or in the next IRC and Teamspeak conversation


There were several open TS3 balance team meetings that no one attended in the past.


at lol o'clock for most europeans iirc
rantology
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22 August 2014 - 23:15 CEST
ATTENTION WORLD:

There will be a BALANCE MEETING! This SUNDAY the 24th 1pm EST/ 19:00 CEST to discuss cmod iteration 3 changes for season5!

If you wish to discuss anything or just listen feel free to show up. We'll be using ENSL teamspeak.
Seb
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23 August 2014 - 07:09 CEST
Will there at any stage be a 'lock' on features coming up to the season, where you guys are happy enough with the mod to stop updating r3 and move on to r4?
rantology
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23 August 2014 - 17:40 CEST
There's no talk currently of an r4. I don't think anyone is completely happy with r3.. so we will continue to try and refine it. Ideally we can come to a conclusion about what to do with certain features this sunday (exo, FT, HMG) and decide what stays for the start of season 5- hopefully things will remain stable for the duration, aside from minor tweaks or changes that seem like a necessity (no more experimental stuff being thrown in).
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23 August 2014 - 18:21 CEST
Could someone stream this meeting, so those who might miss it can review it later.
Mega
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23 August 2014 - 21:00 CEST
rantology says
ATTENTION WORLD:

There will be a BALANCE MEETING! This SUNDAY the 24th 1pm EST/ 19:00 CEST to discuss cmod iteration 3 changes for season5!

If you wish to discuss anything or just listen feel free to show up. We'll be using ENSL teamspeak.


where is the ensl.org newspost to make sure nobody will miss it ?
where is the caster that happly gonna stream it ?

please organise these 2 things thanks.


The time of the event is good in case it dosnt take too long cause EU PCWS normaly happen from 20:00 to 21:00CEST starting time.
(and these people are defintly a big part of the audience that play this balance changes later a lot)


I gonna put a NSL Gathers steam annocment on for this Comp mod balance change meeting,
please do it in the other big ns2 competive related steam groups too k thx.
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24 August 2014 - 06:09 CEST
delete flamethrower
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24 August 2014 - 17:56 CEST
Would it be possible to remove the HMG in favor of making the Exo more viable?

HMG Changes

- Remove HMG from the Armory

EXO Changes

- Take away the infinite ammo

- Add two HMGs with the damage toned down and life form damage increased

- Make movement like a heavier marine

- Reduce the model size a bit

- Reduce the res cost to something reasonable, 30 res? (due to the needed scaling and making them an option in comp play)

- Make it cheaper to research then JPs (balances the high PRes cost)*


*Disregard, Comp meeting was great and makes this a non issue*
rantology
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24 August 2014 - 23:42 CEST
Thanks to everyone that showed up today, the turnout was the highest yet for any such meeting.

For those that could not attend here is the changelog that came from it. This should be close to the final set of changes that will come before the start of season 5.

We will be having another balance meeting next week on the same day/time - The 31st 1pm EST / 19:00 CEST to go over any final thoughts or revisions.
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25 August 2014 - 00:28 CEST
Alright, since this is still not implemented, can we atleast discuss as to why it's not implemented?

Aliens Losing upgrades when their Hive dies.

People were against lifeforms losing upgrades such as umbra, and leap etc, people agreed on it, but it looks like it just got overlooked by everyone else? Why was it overlooked?
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25 August 2014 - 00:31 CEST
Spring says
Alright, since this is still not implemented, can we atleast discuss as to why it's not implemented?

Aliens Losing upgrades when their Hive dies.

People were against lifeforms losing upgrades such as umbra, and leap etc, people agreed on it, but it looks like it just got overlooked by everyone else? Why was it overlooked?


I forgot to ask this today. It's been argued against since the first reply in this thread...

The only time you're losing a second hive with upgrades is when marines are ahead, if marines are ahead this just makes it a snowball of hurt for aliens.
rantology
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25 August 2014 - 00:37 CEST
I forgot to bring that up! I wanted to but by the time I remembered a lot of people had left. We will cover it for sure in the upcoming meeting next week.
rantology
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25 August 2014 - 03:26 CEST
The following changelog from the meeting today is now live... please test as much as possible and bring feedback to the next meeting this sunday:

-HMG: reduce t-res research cost from 15 → 10, change from puncture damage → normal damage

-Exo: Revert to Vanilla state (minus the damage buff). Remove single-arm Exos. Merge both exo researches into 1 single research (25 tres). Reduce P-res cost to 35.

-FT: Move to secondary weapon (replaces pistol). 10 p-res, 10 t-res. 0.15 cone, leave dmg as-is in compmod.
Fire/Burn Debuffs:
Umbra effectiveness reduced by 50%
burns bile projectile
Reduce energy regeneration by 50%
Healing taken is reduced by 50%

-Healing cap: Change 16% hard cap to 16% soft cap, anything over 16% healing gets reduced to 20% effectiveness

-Reduce lerk base armor by 5 (carapace remains unchanged- this makes cara a 20% eHP increase [normalized with other lifeform bonuses])

-Cat packs: reduce duration from 12sec → 8sec - Make marines unable to pick up cat packs if they are currently under the effect of one.

-Roost/silent lerk “sneak key” - While going less than 2 speed the roost key will roost like normal. If you are going more than 2 speed you will now drop to 5.9 "sneak" speed (glide sound kicks in at 6 speed, this will bring you just below that threshhold)

-Reduce biomass scaling on Lerk from 5→ 3, Fade from 12 → 5 (leave onos as-is)

-Remove ragdoll from hallucination deaths and bring back the “poof”


I will also post reasoning for each of these later in the document.
Iots
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25 August 2014 - 07:56 CEST
poof

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmdJljyPaWE

Damn, that conversation was going places.
dePARA
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25 August 2014 - 10:46 CEST
There is an server error while ising umbra within the new version:

http://pastebin.com/10nuSXp7
rantology
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25 August 2014 - 17:31 CEST
dePARA says
There is an server error while ising umbra within the new version:

http://pastebin.com/10nuSXp7


Dragon is awesome and fixed it this morning. Should work now.

The error appeared when you shot umbra'd targets with the flamethrower, correct?
Iots
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25 August 2014 - 18:07 CEST
shift isnt working for lerk either, from the little testing i could do on listen server,
it slows the speed once or twice then stops working, but only if you release space which makes no sense since you need to keep it down to glide,

i pm'd dragon about it on steam but think he fell asleep or just went away, offline now tho so feel free to remind him ;p
rantology
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25 August 2014 - 18:13 CEST
Iots says
shift isnt working for lerk either, from the little testing i could do on listen server,
it slows the speed once or twice then stops working, but only if you release space which makes no sense since you need to keep it down to glide,

i pm'd dragon about it on steam but think he fell asleep or just went away, offline now tho so feel free to remind him ;p


He's been tinkering with it in the past hour. It should in theory work better now.... you need to not be holding the forward key /or/ be going less than 2 speed to roost.

The speed reduction itself seems to work fine for me... are you keeping spacebar+shift held down?


edit: One more additional note to add, since dragon was awesome and made it possible to have 2 separate cones on the welder:

-Welder damage increased - It now does damage equivalent to the Axe. There are now two separate cones- The original cone is now for friendly targets only. There is now a second, smaller cone equivalent to the Axe cone for damaging players and structures.
Iots
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25 August 2014 - 19:34 CEST
Yeh roost seems fine, but no speed reduction for me at least, is there some other version on workshop or am i missing something, O_o
Iots
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26 August 2014 - 06:35 CEST
disclaimer: i had a special bug regarding the new roost/slow bind that afaik only is happening to me, so i'd assume my keyboard is dying out or something weird is going on but., here it is.

If i bind the function to shift or control key, it only works for the roost ability but not for the slowing effect, if i bind it somewhere else it works fine.

By what i mean that it "doesnt work", i can slow the lerk if i release space(which stops gliding) and if i roost even once, it stops working even then.(i need to reload map).

All of this was done on listen server, since yesterday everyone but gather servers removed compmod and didnt really have time to stay up too late, This has to be the best troll on me ever by Dragon, or my keyboard is fucked up :D, wish my spares wouldnt be 3hour drive away. :)

BUT, on to the actual feedback.

IMO the speed decrease is too much, since it decreases you to 6 straight away and you're already loosing momentum it'll go down to 4 or lower really fast, making gliding pretty much null avoid.

So the question is, what is the purpose of this change, is it
a) completely remove silent gliding but keep the opportunity for the lerk to move at a snail pace silently when it wants to.
b) to reduce the speed at which you can silent glide.

If it's option a, it's fine as it is, if it's option b, then it should prolly go up to 8 or 9. What do others think?



dePARA
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26 August 2014 - 21:12 CEST
Dont know if this is an vanilla or compmod error:

http://pastebin.com/X6CgptDL
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