edit: Here is Cmod iteration 4! - please leave feedback and report any bugs you can find!


Hello all

There has been some questions recently about what's going on with CompMod and if anything is planned for season 6. Since the last update to it was some 4 months ago, the interest from the community has dropped sharply in terms of giving feedback and the will to test more changes. This is only natural given that season 5 had gotten underway and the general decline of the competitive scene.

So what now? I want to pose two questions here, and it'd be awesome if you have any strong opinions or feedback on any of it, go ahead and share.

For reference, here is a list of the current changes in CompMod.

1.) What just didn't work out? Is there anything in CompMod that no longer belongs, is unneeded or just plain sucks? Likewise, is there anything in it that worked positively and should stay?

2.) Should there be a new set of changes for Season 6? Is there any balance change you'd like to see happen or discussed? An example here is that to reduce the frustration of cyst spam - it was being discussed that the further away from an active hive a cyst is, the less HP it will have.

Thanks for all the feedback and effort everyone here has helped put into CompMod, and again feedback is greatly appreciated- It is needed to get a feel of where to go from here.

P.S. As always, please be as constructive as you can with any feedback or suggestions - Give reasons and arguments, not just opinions. (e.g. "This sucks because" and not just "This sucks" =) )

1. The Flamethrower could be actually removed or somehow fixed (dont know any solution to fix) and maybe balance out the Nades instead to be used more

2. The cyst spamm as you mentioned would be nice to look into. And also the Hitreg, i saw something on the trello board that you guys had it up in June 2014, but got pushed aside. But brought up again https://trello.com/c/TIyg0TRQ/456-hit-registration-de-sync-issue

Maybe change back to the default Pres for lifeforms. Like when Lerks had to have 25, Fades 40, Onos 60 (Cant remember onos)? Just to try out the balance, right now the Alien winrate is huge, and we saw it on the Newcomer tournament. And actually could change the Alien early play (by not rushing in 1 by 1 if the marines got alot of RTs)

Generally I like to see more viable diverse tech-tree. Just so there is a little more options.
The FL, GL, HMG changes were all steps in the right direction, even when GL+HMG is annoying as hell.

But I don't have many ideas on how to achieve that.

I agree with the huge alien rate win.

Just some ideas :
Phase gate delay of 0.5 seconds
=> 0.3

Nades
=> Allow rines to pickup nades when someone died with it. Also allow com to drop nades.
No need research in Armory. Reduce cost to 2 pres.

FT
=> No need research anymore on AA
Get back energy dmg (less than in vanilla) or at least no energy regeneration while getting hit by FT

HMG
=> Nerf ? I mean, 1 good HMG with medpack spam can almost kill an Onos. Wtf
Onos with cara got 2275 HP (975 HP with biomass 3 + 650 from shells (so 2x650 for health right ? => 650+650+975) HMG does 14dmg to aliens players = 162 bullets to kill Onos biomass 3 with 3 shell as upgrade and with no weapon upgrades. With weapon 2 (what we most see when HMG are up) need 143 bullets. While HMG got 100 bullet in one clip. With 2 HMG Onos is going down easily (72 bullets per rine)

In comparison, sg needs 11 bullets to kill Onos (lets say 6 bullets by 2 rines). It means full clip. I think sg should be stronger than HMG.
I repeat I'm just giving ideas, but I still think HMG need a little nerf on lifeforms. A little nerf could be "Weapons upgrades doesnt have any impact on HMG" for example

Lifeforms costs
=> I disagree with Rysks on Lerk and Fade but Onos could be push to 60 if HMG are nerfed. My point is to punish alien if they loose their onos, but not their fades or lerks.

I enjoyed most of the changes in comp mod v3. The lerk changes were great, the alien PRes changes were fine – there were only a few areas that didn’t quite work or still need tweaking. I’ve made a list below with comments and suggested changes - I don’t expect everyone to agree, but I’m just throwing ideas out there for discussion based on my experience playing v3.

Grenades:
=> Again, another tech item barely researched or used. Allow to be picked up, allow to be dropped on armory or lower the PRes cost to promote their usage.

Cysts:
=> Currently, mid/late game cyst spam results in aliens winning by attrition in many cases across many levels of play. The idea of disconnect cysts further away die faster is good one, but I would like to suggest another alternative. Cysts could have less HP, but also grow faster. Thus, an infested room with mounds of pve is able to be cleared quickly and easily, but can also be recapped by aliens easily if they clear.

Gorge Webs:
=> Is there any reason why these are on Biomass 7 ? I don’t think anyone noticed this change in comp mod. I would suggest moving them back to biomass 5 at the very least to see if they actually get used, and what effect they would have on a game.

Weapon Pick up Time:
=> The current weapon pickup time is 25 seconds before a weapon disappears. This is a massive amount of time. It allows for marines to respawn, phase through to the other end of the map and regain their PRes investments with little ease (assuming the weapons are not biled). There is no real consequence to being out of position or losing an engagement when the pickup time is this value. Good marines will be able to accumulate sizable Pres as well, so even if they do lose their weapon eventually, they can easily just buy a new one. It also nullifies the need for commanders to drop weapons.
My suggestion would be lowering it to 15 seconds. If that seems extreme, try a middle ground of 20 seconds instead. Picking up a weapon and dropping it again would cause the timer to reset like it does at the moment.

HMGs:
=>A tricky one. These guys have essentially taken up the role of the exos to take down lifeforms like onos. At the moment, the only drawback to using hmgs is they can’t effectively clear structures – but that doesn’t matter too much when you mix in a few other weapons in the team comp.

My biggest issue with these guns is how early they can appear on the field. For something meant to tackle mid/late game lifeforms, I have witnessed many games where a strong marine team can dominate with 1 or 2 early hmgs on the field to neutralize lerks when they pop. I think a lot of this has to do with the research time and research cost.

I would suggest making the following changes to ensure that HMGs do not have devastating effects early game – and if they do, it’s because of a risky tech choice that has consequences. So, I suggest the following small changes at the very least:

HMG research Cost 15 TRes (up from 10TRes)
HMG research time 45 seconds (up from 30secs)

Arcs:
=>Not sure if everyone agrees with me on this one, but I find arcs very cumbersome to use. The rate they move over infestation is excruciating - as a commander it is frustrating to have seemingly no micro control over them on infest or anywhere near enemy territory. I’m wondering what people’s thoughts are if arcs were faster but had less HP to compensate. Not saying that they are currently broken or horrible or need changing, but I do feel like they could be made more responsive to reward good micro from a commander.

Flamethrowers:
=> Obviously, I think these were the biggest disaster of comp mod. But that’s noones fault, the FT has always been an odd weapon to balance properly, and I’m not sure it even has a spot in the game. I’ve always felt FT’s should be pve busters, and support weapons vs lifeforms (ie not high damage). I’m interested to see how you guys might approach another FT rebalance.

Protolab:
=> 40 TRes to drop has always seem a bit excessive to me. Surely the drop cost can be lowered to 20 TRes to promote more late game tech? The research costs could always be adjusted to compensate.

Jetpacks:
=> Currently, there is no real incentive to go jps other than running out of things to spend tres on or on certain maps like veil with cargo hive. In their current form, they are too slow and cumbersome to be affective against late game lifeforms. My suggestion is to increase the max amount of fuel slightly.

Exos:
=> These are still rarely used, especially given that you can have an effective weapon vs late game lifeforms like onos by using HMGs and marine movement, which is far easier than using a cumbersome exo suit. I honestly don’t see how these can co-exist with HMG’s. In its current form, the dual exo has crazy damage output, but it will never be a viable option because the game is usually over by that stage anyway.

Hive 3 abilities:
=> How often do we get to see this used, if at all? How often do we ever see three hives in a comp game? If there is a way to make higher biomass researchable on 2 hives, but increase the cost of it for each stage to provide a res sink, then that could be an option. Although, there is always the possibility that no one actually wants to use the gimmicky third hive abilities in the first place, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

Some Ideas I had:

Hand Grenades
=> Make pickup-able.
=> Maybe make them purchaseable as singe grenade instead of always pairs (so 1 nade for x res), but allow for more than one to be carried (Maybe even different kinds at once). For example I could buy a single pulsegrenade if I just want to yolophase through a grindgate, or a nervegas and two clusters if I want to take out a Gorge-fort,...
=> Could also reduce research-cost or remove research altogether like Narkoweed sugested. Also research-time takes ages at the moment, so just researching them when you need them is not too viable at the moment i feel.

GL
=> Make grenades only explode if they actually hit an alien lifeform/structure (Like pulse grenades minus the timed explosion) . This would basically kill most GL-spam-issues (even though not that common in comp) and stop stray grenades from randomly damaging lifeforms in group fights without requiring any aim by the user whatsoever. Maybe also revert or lessen the vanilla damage-nerf, cause right now GL feels pretty weak.

Umbra
=> Might remove the stick-to-lifeforms-effect and make the actual cloud the thing blocking the damage. Right now I feel Lerks just have to aim at the entrance and anything going through is protected, requiring almost no skill. Same Later in fights: Just aim at any phasegates and lifeforms pulling off to kill marines coming from somewhere else are still protected even if they are miles away from the cloud.

Other:
Anti-cyst-spam idea is good in my opinion.

@bonage just my opinion on some stuff you proposed. I dont know how you guys play in AUS... But i dont really like some of your ideas :
Gorge Webs: not used, not needed ^^ They said "web = counter jp" yeah yeah, who cares, leap is thx :p

Weapon Pick up time:
There is no real consequence to being out of position or losing an engagement when the pickup time is this value.
Hum... No, You cant respawn, phase and go warehouse if there is a pg hub. Your weapon will already disapear. I think the timer is fine actually. You have a chance to get it if it's near spawn or pg, but if you were a bit out of pos, you are punish.

Arcs: Are fine, tell your rine to kill the cist :) I mean it's not that difficult to kill cist.. Moreover if it's ""nerfed"" if not near an active hive. With this alien can get time to get bilebomb if they constantly harass rine covering arcs so they cant kill the cist.

Hive 3 abilities:
Yeah you won't see often 3 hives. And what do you have on the 7th, 8th and 9th of biomass ? Stomp, xeno (lolol...), stab, and spores...
So you have one kikoolol thing (xeno), one thing who no one cares (stab), and then you have spores and stomp. OP things. So yeah I think it's fine the way it is. What is a point about seeing one Onos stomping ppl with 2 hives ? Same shit with spores. If you got 2 hives you are not in a bad position, so why should we make alien even stronger ? Also, there is only on veil which it is difficult to get 3 hives. I mean on tram, jambi, summit, etc... That's not that difficult to drop 3 hives.

Jetpacks:
Yeah myb a bit too slow. No need more fuel, If you go into a fight, just save your fuel before to do so... If you increase your fuel that mean you gonna need 5 skulks to kill one jp ? srsly ?

Protolab:
When you got proto. Usually you are not in a bad position. But yeah 40 res is maybe a bit too much. I mean you need AA (20), then proto (40) and then jp (25) = 85 Tres... Even if you only count research and proto, it represents 65 Tres...

Anyways we need to do something about HMG, I agree with you on that point and also nades

@caperp
GL just got nerfed in vanilla. And It was obviously a good thing "Make grenades only explode if they actually hit an alien lifeform/structure" isn't it already the case in comp mod ? GL are there to kill structure, not to kill lifeforms. Rine got SG, LMG and HMG to do so. I really disagree with any buff of GL. It's really powerfull against structure and it's not bad at all against lifeforms...

ARCS:
I was thinking about them too. They are too slow, easy to lose and the cost are very high. Thats why you see them less and less in matches. Decreasing the cost or increasing the speed can bring them back.

SHOTGUN/FLAMETHROWER:
I know this would change standard game a bit... But try this. The FT is available on Armory for 10 PRes after its activated for 10 TRes by the commander as a primary weapon. The SG is available as soon as AA is been buildt.
The plan is to change the FT into a soft counter against Lerks and afterwards a help (energy drown) against Fades until SGs are up. The FT could be still skipped with the same TRes amout.

GRENADELAUNCHER:
Decrease Speed and increase Size of the projectiles.
The usage for killing buildings stays, but its harder to hit lifeforms.

EXO:
Maybe if EXOs are recycable like weapons, they would be used more. After an EXO died it starts to "burn". After a period of time the EXO explodes. To prevent that you need to weld the EXO with a WELDER to refill the health. Afterwards the EXO is usable again.

LERK:
Biomass should effect more LERKs health and regen. Increase it to 4.

ALIEN EGGS:
I think to bring them back would be nice. I mean what can an Alien Commander do in minute 25 in the game except dropping a lot of PVE to hold down the TRes. This causes imo more boring games. Its much more fun to play and to watch games marines killing lifeforms instead of PVE. I never heard a commentator screamed: WOOOW, NIIIIICE, The whip is down. What a shot!.
I wish it would be back. But I would say an Onos for 55 Tres is just imba. Doubling the TRes of every Lifeform would fit I guess.

Bonage has raised all the points that need to be discussed, hence I'm going to quote all of them and write down what I personally think.

bonage says

Grenades:
=> Again, another tech item barely researched or used. Allow to be picked up, allow to be dropped on armory or lower the PRes cost to promote their usage.

I definitely agree on that. Grenades are currently useless and I barely see a few teams that go for it but in general, when they do so, that's more about trolling or finishing a game already over anyway. The ability for the Marines Commander to drop grenades shouldn't be put away because that'd increase their use, which is non-existent in the both current vanilla or CompMod. I'm not so sure about lowering their PRes cost though, especially not if the Commander gets the possibility to drop some near the Armory.

bonage says

Cysts:
=> Currently, mid/late game cyst spam results in aliens winning by attrition in many cases across many levels of play. The idea of disconnect cysts further away die faster is good one, but I would like to suggest another alternative. Cysts could have less HP, but also grow faster. Thus, an infested room with mounds of pve is able to be cleared quickly and easily, but can also be recapped by aliens easily if they clear.

Why not? I admit I haven't thought about such a thing but in the other hand, if the Aliens get the opportunity to cyst the whole map because of an amount of harvesters too high. The lack of pushing from the Marines should be punishable. It results to the Aliens Commander cysting everywhere and actually, blocking the Marines or at least, preventing them to move forward too easily. You have to remember that cysts cost TRes and doing so results into less Res for researching upgrades or whatever. It however increases the Aliens domination if so. Honestly, the map is full of cysts once the game is over, again. I'm not thinking about that as an issue that needs to be solved.

bonage says

Gorge Webs:
=> Is there any reason why these are on Biomass 7 ? I don’t think anyone noticed this change in comp mod. I would suggest moving them back to biomass 5 at the very least to see if they actually get used, and what effect they would have on a game.

Everything has been said. Nobody is already using it at Biomass 5, keeping it at Biomass 7 is even worse.

bonage says

Weapon Pick up Time:
=> The current weapon pickup time is 25 seconds before a weapon disappears. This is a massive amount of time. It allows for marines to respawn, phase through to the other end of the map and regain their PRes investments with little ease (assuming the weapons are not biled). There is no real consequence to being out of position or losing an engagement when the pickup time is this value. Good marines will be able to accumulate sizable Pres as well, so even if they do lose their weapon eventually, they can easily just buy a new one. It also nullifies the need for commanders to drop weapons.
My suggestion would be lowering it to 15 seconds. If that seems extreme, try a middle ground of 20 seconds instead. Picking up a weapon and dropping it again would cause the timer to reset like it does at the moment.

I'll give it a shot. I have no real opinion about this one.

bonage says

HMGs:
=>A tricky one. These guys have essentially taken up the role of the exos to take down lifeforms like onos. At the moment, the only drawback to using hmgs is they can’t effectively clear structures – but that doesn’t matter too much when you mix in a few other weapons in the team comp.

My biggest issue with these guns is how early they can appear on the field. For something meant to tackle mid/late game lifeforms, I have witnessed many games where a strong marine team can dominate with 1 or 2 early hmgs on the field to neutralize lerks when they pop. I think a lot of this has to do with the research time and research cost.

I would suggest making the following changes to ensure that HMGs do not have devastating effects early game – and if they do, it’s because of a risky tech choice that has consequences. So, I suggest the following small changes at the very least:

HMG research Cost 15 TRes (up from 10TRes)
HMG research time 45 seconds (up from 30secs)

There's obviously something that needs to be done about HMGs. Although increasing their research cost makes a lot of sense, I cannot figure out what's the point at also increasing their research time. 15 seconds will not change anything. I can't see honestly what could be done to fix HMGs, I'm still thinking these weapons, despite the fact they're awesome and well-designed have no interest (talking about balances) to be implemented into the game. Nevertheless, knowing that they will not be removed from the CompMod, I suggest that you have a talk with the guy on this thread.

bonage says

Arcs:
=>Not sure if everyone agrees with me on this one, but I find arcs very cumbersome to use. The rate they move over infestation is excruciating - as a commander it is frustrating to have seemingly no micro control over them on infest or anywhere near enemy territory. I’m wondering what people’s thoughts are if arcs were faster but had less HP to compensate. Not saying that they are currently broken or horrible or need changing, but I do feel like they could be made more responsive to reward good micro from a commander.

I'm afraid to say that: kill the cysts, move up your ARCs = fixed. ARCs have not that much HPs already and reducing them would only get them less interesting, depending on the maps. Their speed has been intentionally lowered because their strength makes them really efficient already. They're expensive and they're already low in HPs (from my view). If there's something that does not need to be modified in the CompMod, that's the ARCs.

bonage says

Flamethrowers:
=> Obviously, I think these were the biggest disaster of comp mod. But that’s noones fault, the FT has always been an odd weapon to balance properly, and I’m not sure it even has a spot in the game. I’ve always felt FT’s should be pve busters, and support weapons vs lifeforms (ie not high damage). I’m interested to see how you guys might approach another FT rebalance.

Good point. That'd need a whole thread to discuss about these weapons.

bonage says

Protolab:
=> 40 TRes to drop has always seem a bit excessive to me. Surely the drop cost can be lowered to 20 TRes to promote more late game tech? The research costs could always be adjusted to compensate.

No, thanks. Doing this would only bring us to how the HMGs are. If the Proto is too cheap, JPs and Exos will come mid game instead of late game. And the strategy HMGs/JPs would be too much OP. Focusing on them instead of A/W upgrades would be a disaster. Except if you increase the cost of Exos and JPs, which will have no sense.

bonage says

Jetpacks:
=> Currently, there is no real incentive to go jps other than running out of things to spend tres on or on certain maps like veil with cargo hive. In their current form, they are too slow and cumbersome to be affective against late game lifeforms. My suggestion is to increase the max amount of fuel slightly.

I agree on it. However, I would use what you said only if you do not combine it with the point above about the Proto. Increasing their amount of fuel should make them more efficient and more used by people but only if the Proto remains at 40TRes. I mean, cheap Proto in addition to such OP JPs, hell no.

bonage says

Exos:
=> These are still rarely used, especially given that you can have an effective weapon vs late game lifeforms like onos by using HMGs and marine movement, which is far easier than using a cumbersome exo suit. I honestly don’t see how these can co-exist with HMG’s. In its current form, the dual exo has crazy damage output, but it will never be a viable option because the game is usually over by that stage anyway.

The current feature from CompMod that allows Marines to get dual Exos once they're researched is already fine. Yet, most of the teams go for JPs instead of Exos. They're going for Exos merely to troll or because they know they got the game already. As you said, HMGs prevent Exos to get searched and I don't see any solution to make them more used and effective. They're slow, expensive and can only get researched in late game, very late game because they're kinda weak without armor's upgrades.

bonage says

Hive 3 abilities:
=> How often do we get to see this used, if at all? How often do we ever see three hives in a comp game? If there is a way to make higher biomass researchable on 2 hives, but increase the cost of it for each stage to provide a res sink, then that could be an option. Although, there is always the possibility that no one actually wants to use the gimmicky third hive abilities in the first place, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

3rd Hive means end of the round. Something that might be done though, is increasing the Biomass levels cost to force teams to drop Hives instead, but I'm not sure that would be wise.

I want the onos boneshield to bouncing the marines bullets, in this case marins can die from their proper bullets by simply shooting an onos, that's would be hilarious.

Seriously no, but pls do not nerf the HMG.

I didn't agree with Narko, a solo HMG can't kill an onos, it would mean that the onos is missing every of his knocks on the marin, he have just to place three hits including two following, its not very difficult.. Even for a paraplegic onos.

And yes, we need useful and cheapier nades :D

Yeah, only paraplegic onos can die from solo rine. But my point is HMG too OP against lifeform and in particular Onos. I mean full hiting a fade moving everywhere with HMG.. Same shit about lerk, but Onos eZ to full hit and with 2 HMG Onos is useless, he just can go in without dying if rine got somes meds.

Anyways even if HMG need a nerf (my opinion) rine need a buff :)

If you guys really want to use web they gonna need a crazy buff....

Narkoweed says

If you guys really want to use web they gonna need a crazy buff....

I don't think it needs a buff yet as I don't think anyone has explored the full potential of webs in their current form. Just because something isn't used doesn't mean it is bad or doesn't work. It's better to make them accessible first and go from there.

Regarding my other points/suggestions, most of them come from my desire to rethink late game tech and add variety to the stale tech path options. That being said, I don't think we'll see many changes to comp mod outside of cysts, FTs and maybe HMGs & grenades - which I'm ok with too.

Hyste says

I want the onos boneshield to bouncing the marines bullets, in this case marins can die from their proper bullets by simply shooting an onos, that's would be hilarious.

Seriously no, but pls do not nerf the HMG.

I didn't agree with Narko, a solo HMG can't kill an onos, it would mean that the onos is missing every of his knocks on the marin, he have just to place three hits including two following, its not very difficult.. Even for a paraplegic onos.

And yes, we need useful and cheapier nades :D

That's not really how this weapon is supposed to be working. The fact that a single HMG can almost kill an Onos, admitting that he's seen the Onos a way before being attacked, in addition to medpacks, the said Onos will get back to his main pretty low, if not dead. Another Marine might pop up all of a sudden and finish him up. Of course, whether the Onos is able to hit the Marine or not makes it even worse but in all the case, the Marines buy 20 Pres their weapon against a lifeform that costs 50 Pres which makes this balance's issue not legit from my view. 2 HMGs still not make it more logical. You can easily let down the Onos health to mid life without the Onos being able to hit back.

About Webs: If I understood them correctly (actually I have close to zero experience with them... as they are never placed somewhere), they are a defensive structure, probably going well with some Clogs, Hydras and a Whip or two.

However, when Aliens reached the 3rd Hive they are seldomly protecting any specific place with that kind of stuff. There is no further need of a Gorge-Fort somewhere on the map, as they usually try to push marines out of their last stand.

So it is a defensive structure, which is unlocked at a point in the game, where the Aliens don't have to care about any defense anymore. I think that might be one of the main reasons, while you never see it.

I could imagine however to see a web or another placed in front of an aggressive Gorge-Tunnel in the early game or something similar. That would need to move the Web all the way down to Biomass 1-2. Would be interesting to see, what it actually does.



In the other thread about the "future" of NS2-Comp, there was discussed, that it is hard to find good coms and there was some pointers on why alien-commanding is less fun:

I'll agree herakles about the alien commander being an issue for commanders in NS2. When i started playing you had to play field as much as u had to play in the hive as alien comm. It was fun since u had to time when to go in out of the hive. To keep it short you had stuff to do from the first minute till the end. The alien commander last time i played it, was just playing sim city and use some drifters ....
to be honest its not that much fun. there is no real way to improve if you compare it to the Marin commander and Medpack drops.

Actually I don't know this by first-hand, but I see the logic here. On Marine-side dropping med-packs is an activity, which requires accuracy and good timing and the impact is large enough to change the outcome of a particular engagement, which snowballs quickly in an advantage of the whole team. On top of that there are a couple of decissions, which require a good game-sense, when Aliens move into Marine-Base (beacon? Logging out? Relocate?...)

There is no such activity for the Alien-commander, with the exception of Bone-Walls, which work only on cysted area. All other activities do not require timing or accuracy. It's nice, if you are quick, but not really necessary. We recently had an iternal game in TAW, with very balanced teams on the ground, but the Alien-Commander had almost no idea, of what he was doing. However, the game was very balanced, because the Alien-Com doesn't have to perform critical decissions.

With Drifters you have to roughly hit the corresponding location, as they spit out an area-effect, so no accuracy needed. You can take your time to place any buildings. Rupture needs some time before it performs, so it doesn't require timing either.

I don't know which activities would suite for something, which requires good timing and accuracy and has a large impact on engagements. Maybe it needs something completely new even. Here some funny ideas, right of the top off my head, which could actually lead to some "battle" between the comes:
On Crag Hive: A med-shield. Prevents the Marine-Com from dropping the med-packs, where he wants to. 1 tres for 1 second of a roughly marine-sized shield?
On Shift Hive: Drop tranquilizers on the marines, reducing their speed and reload, similar to cat-pack, but the inverse. However you need to hit them directly, those will not be "picked up" by marines if you miss them (actually very similar to bone-wall - but would have to work on uncysted area as well)
On Shade Hive: Drop a very shortlived ink-cloud on your lifeforms, giving them a second of Invisibility for 1 tres.

As said, just brainstorming wildly here and of course it would require a huge new iteration of balancing, so it doesn't buff the alien-side. But stuff similar like that could make the alien-com more fun to play. Not sure if changes like that would still fall into comp-mod then, though.

Actually looking into div3/4 the large amount of Alien wins requires some buff for marines. I tend to second the proposed changes to grenades - I am not sure, though, that this will actually buff the marines overall. I am blank on any good buffs for marines, though. The trouble always starts, when Aliens get their Lerks/Fades up, then it spirals down for marines very, very, quickly, even after a good or very good start. So, if you want to balance something, it should aim at that transition.

Maybe the Aliens just need a little nerf, instead. I have the feeling that losing lifeforms is a bit too easy to compensate at the moment, not much, though. We had the change of reducing lifeforms pres-costs by 5, maybe increase it again by 2 or 3 to hit the middle-grounds. The numbers get odd then, but who cares...

I would say something about FT.

FT in vanilla always was the best thing to remove cysts. In comp FT even worse than welder in this case. Incendiary effect of FT is useless too because cluster grenades is more effective. So IMO there is no any way to use FT in comp now. Fix it.

A random idea:

What about skulk's adrenaline will halved after taking an each grade? That should partially solve a problem of invincible leap-skulks in midgame and complicate a resbiting.

A few more ideas:

1) Buff Power Purge? For example: remove its cooldown. Сompletely.
2) Buff MACs? For example: increase its movespeed by 50% or increase MAC's repair and build speed by 20%.
3) Increase marine grades research time? For example, by 30%... I'm really don't like that marines addicted to max grades every ****ing game. There should be ANOTHER ways to get advantage.
4) Buff Nanoshield? Never seen it used in comp. Maybe make it only-structures use? And prolong its duration to 15 secs? And so maybe increase its TRes cost to 7 or 8?
5) Buff sentry start? For example, decrease build time of sentries by 2 sec. Decrease Factory cost by 5 TRes...

Another thought:
I think we should nerfe pistol. DPS is too high. And I'm tired of mouse scripts. It's everywhere. Maybe 7 shots per second will be ok?.. Or at least permit pistol macros by NSL rules.

If I remember correctly there is already a delay between pistol shots and I never noticed someone using a macro for those

Another idea I have is to mix up the Shade Hive abilities. Combine Aura and Invisibility to one upgrade. I think this could be powerful and maybe another option for a hive at start.

Just as a general note about the HMG, the weapon IS supposed to be the lifeform killer, so if its currently slightly OP as that, then its sorta working as intended. The HMG may not be perfect, but baring major changes to make exos work well it is filling a needed role in the marine arsenal. I still fail to understand why it continually comes up as being something that should be removed, or that it makes no sense.. If you support exos being made useful then you are essentially supporting the HMG, they really are 2 different methods of filling the same role. Its just much easier to ADD the HMG than to fix exos for comp play.

And yes there is a forced delay between pistol shots, so macro'ing it is mostly pointless now.

Narkoweed says

Yeah, only paraplegic onos can die from solo rine. But my point is HMG too OP against lifeform and in particular Onos. I mean full hiting a fade moving everywhere with HMG.. Same shit about lerk, but Onos eZ to full hit and with 2 HMG Onos is useless, he just can go in without dying if rine got somes meds.

Anyways even if HMG need a nerf (my opinion) rine need a buff :)

If you guys really want to use web they gonna need a crazy buff....

Allow me to offer the solution: Don't full on engage with your onos if there are 2HMG in the room. Bait with the onos, have your comm use bone wall, and use your other life forms to distract or backstab the marines focus firing your onos.

An onos should not be trying to kill 2 HMG marines alone. An onos should not be engaging without the team. If the team is playing as a team, 2 HMG marines won't kill anyone - even with meds.

There's some excellent feedback here, thanks to everyone that posted!

We've started a list of accumulated ideas that might work well (based on feedback from this thread and that accumulated during the season), and hopefully eventually solidify into a test build we can try out after season 5 is complete.

Here's the new iteration 4 document

And I want to stress these are simply ideas at the moment, the list is far from complete or final. In fact it will probably change quite a bit, so consider it just a starting point. Keep up the feedback!

I like the changes. But I would like to see 35 TRes for JPs. Because I think the timing and the investment was fine for them.

The question: do we want to keep it as a secondary weapon? - I would say as a primary weapon again.

Are the changes already coded? When yes. How is it about a small Tournament on Sunday, 15th or Sunday, 22th to test these changes?

They are not yet coded, no. I think we could probably wait 1-2 more weeks to continue solidifying ideas... there's no rush anyway, season 5 must end first before any changes can be tested (aside from a beta cmod version I suppose).

The Changes Rantology posted sound good.


I agree to:

Cyst nice idea.
HMGS good change.
Webs a good iniative to make them useable now the same for FTs, Exos, Fade Stab please.



I dont know the Sense of (what means im not for it and not against it):

ProtoLab TRES change didnt saw a need for change but ok.
Lerk to be honest i didnt even understoud what i readed with purr :O

Arcs this boost abtility sounds interesting since there is nowhere stated that it must be resarched i guess every arc has it allways also im not sure if arcs need a change i think they are in a good place.



I would adjust:

Hand Grenades in theory good.
but i suggest go even further
1) let the commander buy grenades like a wepon
2) every marine spawns with 1 maybe more grenades like ns1
(maybe let the commander research grenades for 10 or 5 tres)


FlameThrowers
i cant think of a Good easy solution to be honest the basic question is:
When is a often occuring situation where a Marine ever would prefer his Flamethrower instead of a SG/HMG/LMG/GL ?
I can only think of serisly buffing Flamer damage to make it something inbetween LMG-HMG and probly no secondary wepon.




Stuff i would have Wished you would try a Experiment build like the ARCS:

Exos:
Replace them with the Heavy Armor from the NS Classic mod.
make him still vulernable to bilebomb.
(cause this solves the immobility issue gives a lot armor can take regular wepons with a little bit speed penaltiy in movment)

i know its a big change but to be honest the issues about the exos are:
his immobility
his vulernability from skulks.
cant use PGs.


Then Fade Stab:
There must be a reason to leave it as a Hive 3 Tech.
There are multiple possiblitys:
1) Replace it with Focus from the NS1 mod that is a 2 Swipe kill abtility but the attack rate is slower.
2) Upgrade the Regular Swipe somehow like with Metabolize and adv. Meta.
3) Let it automatical Trigger when you Pressed Mouse1 while you where still in the Blink but make fast like 0,5 second and hit, not this 1-2 second delay where he charges up. (its a freaking Hive 3 tech it suppose to be strong)






Since you have the Arc change as Experimental i hope you would test some more stuff too as "experimental"

If you dont consider it.
lets have development allways in some sort of "comp mod beta" with eperimental changes while the Season goes on.

(maybe even in cooperation with the CDT or send them some Streams of it and they can judge themself if it fits for vanillia NS2.)
Because even the CDT adopts good changes as we saw some NS2 builds ago.

Good idea with the so called "Heavy Armor". I havent played ns1 much and never used this Armor suit. However, I heard lots of players saying that they miss it a lot. For public, Exos are totally fine, for competitive-play it's a joke-strategy though.

Simba says

Narkoweed says

Yeah, only paraplegic onos can die from solo rine. But my point is HMG too OP against lifeform and in particular Onos. I mean full hiting a fade moving everywhere with HMG.. Same shit about lerk, but Onos eZ to full hit and with 2 HMG Onos is useless, he just can go in without dying if rine got somes meds.

Anyways even if HMG need a nerf (my opinion) rine need a buff :)

Allow me to offer the solution: Don't full on engage with your onos if there are 2HMG in the room. Bait with the onos, have your comm use bone wall, and use your other life forms to distract or backstab the marines focus firing your onos.

An onos should not be trying to kill 2 HMG marines alone. An onos should not be engaging without the team. If the team is playing as a team, 2 HMG marines won't kill anyone - even with meds.

Who said Onos should engage 2 HMG alone even 2 SG ? Not me... I said HMG OP against Onos. Who said Onos should engage alone in fight ? Not me. You missunderstood what I said. If team is playing as a team isn't my point. My point is HMG does a lot of dmg, onos is eZ to aim.

bonage says

Narkoweed says

If you guys really want to use web they gonna need a crazy buff....

I don't think it needs a buff

By buff I was meaning "no pres cost and no Tres cost" (like babblers). I mean... Babblers works. No one using them in comp, why ? Cuz they are useless as web. The most used build-order on alien if meta, and charge first, then umbra (just speaking about researches on the hive). Web won't be priority to research, even if there is no pres cost.



About the temporary cmod iteration 4 :
Cist => Yes
Handnade => + ability to drop by com (as Mega said)
HMG => ....
Webs => I dont care anyway
Arcs => Sounds really cool !
FT => Well, if you go right away back to the vanilla one, primary !
Proto => Let's try but I'm not a fan of this idea
Lerk => Purr ? Wtf is that ?




About mega ideas :
FT => The vanilla FT does a little of burn dmg. I think the main "goal" of using FT is killing the alien energy, and alien structures "abilities" (If you hit a hive or a crag or whatever, it's just stop to heal alien or regen their energy. So having a FT in a hive on a 5 men push allow to kill lifeform easily cuz of no regen and no heal from alien structure in the hive room being hit by FT).
That's why I don't think it need a buff. Going back to the vanilla FT is already a buff actually :p

Hand Grenades => As I said, I agree with you

Exos => idk the classic NS mod but what you said sounds nice.

Fade Stab => 1 and 2 yes, 3 wtf ? Anyway we need to do something about it. I mean, it's even worst than web, no one use it even in pub servers :p The current stab is hard to use cuz hard to time it i think.. Idk i'm not a fade, fades players should give their opinions about it.

A heavy armor would be nice, it give you armor 3 stats with armor 0 and + 30 armor points with armor 1, +60 with armor 2 and +90 with armor 3. then delete exos from comp mod :D (or add one with a shutgan plssss)

Narkoweed says

Lerk => Purr ? Wtf is that ?

Isn't that the random the lerk makes from time to time and that can give him away ?
I mean I guess purr is just a word to define that sound. I thought you only heard it if you played lerk.

Yes, sorry about any confusion. Lerk "purr" is just what I've always heard it called. Its that weird idle noise he makes- the issue is that he makes it all the time regardless of what you're doing (you can also hear it while the game is paused).

It's given away many would-be sneaky lerks trying to ambush or hide and it's dumb that it plays while stationary or moving slowly (which I don't think is the intended behavior anyway and it may very well be a bug from vanilla).

Would love to see a NS1 heavy armor variant in NS2 as well. Anyway, I like most of the changes suggested.

As for arcs, how about just removing the speed penalty on infestation entirely?