Pelargir says

Spring says

Did you see anyone going shift hive before 2eZ/doityourself did it?

I've actually seen like 18 teams that did it before 2eZ. My previous team (2hrsLater) mainly went Shift Hive first and yet, it was during Season 4. Nothing has really changed ingame till now so I won't say you've been the first team going for Shift Hive first. It's even quite the opposite. During past seasons, it was division 2 teams that were finding out strategies and new meta on NS2 competitive, not Div 1 or Prem div. They might have improved it, at best but nothing more.

Okay, sorry, I admit I haven't watched lower div games, but is this really the place to be nitpicking? I was just giving an example. Anyway, I fixed it just for you.

Spring says

Pelargir says

Spring says

Did you see anyone going shift hive before 2eZ/doityourself did it?

I've actually seen like 18 teams that did it before 2eZ. My previous team (2hrsLater) mainly went Shift Hive first and yet, it was during Season 4. Nothing has really changed ingame till now so I won't say you've been the first team going for Shift Hive first. It's even quite the opposite. During past seasons, it was division 2 teams that were finding out strategies and new meta on NS2 competitive, not Div 1 or Prem div. They might have improved it, at best but nothing more.

Okay, sorry, I admit I haven't watched lower div games, but is this really the place to be nitpicking? I was just giving an example.

It's just to make things clear since a few people seem to not understand that Prem Div doesn't do everything in competitive. But yeah, forward.

Is TAW compleatly trying to destroy the competetive scene now?

Mephilles says

well what I want of compmod is that every weapon or upgrade there is should be viable at every level of play. For example 90% of the people go celerity (and probably 100% of div 1 people prefer celerity over adrenaline).

99% of the people prefer minigun exo over railgun exo

who goes flamethrower ever? and why?

then I never see babblers, webs and stab aswell

Adrenaline is viable in certain situations, fades who use lots of energy, gorges, lerks late game etc..

I don't think comp mod should be here to make every upgrade / tech path equal, just like in other games there are more common choices that the majority of players use, in Counter Strike the majority of the players play with the AK-47 as the rifle of choice, do you see valve buffing the SG 553 so more people play with this rifle? No, for the last 15 years people have used the AK-47 as there rifle of choice. Not every upgrade / tech path needs to be viable at every level.

Lastly, I feel skulks after 2nd hive are ridiculously strong, they have 2 upgrades (normally Carapace and Celerity), Biomass 6 and Leap this makes skulks very strong and when added with the yolo nature most people play skulk they can clear 2-3 marines when in a pack. I think skulks mid - late game should solely be res-biters and coming in late to engagements to help lifeforms. At the moment packs of skulks if played correctly can prolong the game quite easily and just wait till they have the Pres to have lifeforms again, this is not how it should be when playing alien once all lifeforms have been killed, marines should be in a very favourable position to finish the game.

didn't SG553 get a buff quite recently, so they are like AK just differen recoil patter, the ability to zoom in and cost 300$ more?

I didn't know we're playing CS?

Kash says

Here is a list of what has been discussed (or tried to be in some cases :P ) so far... feel free to chip in with opinions and ideas also, they don't need to be on the list, if you have ideas not shown speak up, the more the merrier!

...

M2, M3, M4, A6 A7, A8, A9 seems to be just senseless, unfounded and random. I can't say anything about it but it's st... wrong.

M1 (FT) - Personally I don't like this idea because it removes rifle bash and it removes flamethrower as a separate independent marine weapon, making FT just as LMG buff. However, it will resolve FT cause but I rather suggest my own sight on problem.

M5 (Nano) - Maybe we should add this as experiment. It will be interesting to see if marines will start use nano and how it will influence on gameplay. Because it's true that nano didn't adapted at any live strats now, (except maybe exo strat).

A1 (Bite cone and Low Divs) - I'm agree that we shouldn't change this aspect of game. If you want to help low divs teams to play marines then buff (or make an opportunity to work it up) some no skill-dependent strats they can play.

A2 (New grades) - I personnaly don't require that much. I think we must balance and make work fine things that already exist. And I think that NS2 gameplay doesn't need new features now unless it conditioned by balance issues.

A5 (Web) - I'm not sure web need a change in compmod, people often don't play gorge or if they play then gorge don't use web because he has better things to do or he hasn't such experience. Web are pretty usefull in specific situations, don't make web OP. If you want buff it, just increase web hp so marines will weld it longer (about 50 now, make 150 or 200)

A10 (Babblers) - All this is acceptable but if you want make it 0 Pres cost then make it reseachable (bio 2 or 3). Also you can don't change current bubblers except their Pres cost (1 now make 0.2). However I don't think babblers was invented in game to do a decent damage to the marine side. It's just a funny accompaniment for gorge.

Kash says

Also, the idea for most of these changes isn't to balance what we currently have, but to shake up comp...

Spring says

As for marines there are mines, sentries, phase gates, arms lab, 2 arms labs, relocate, shotguns. Is this not enough for you? What else do you want..u? What else do you want..

If we do changes we should weaken too often used openings and improve things that doesn't used while making ns2 balance better on early, mid, late stages of the game and on all div levels. Nobody wants "shake up comp". All changes should be careful and small and firstly we must work on things we already have. And yes we have a lot of potential strats BUT all them sux... PG is obviously weaker than arms lab opening. Sentries sux. Shotguns is early all-in strat that means it's shit opening (at least we can't call it a full strat). Relocate is risky and map-dependent. I'm sure people don't play some strats because they definitely worse than classic armslab-2ip (skill-dependent strats not worth the candle and some strats is just WEAK)

RolliePollie says

I don't think comp mod should be here to make every upgrade / tech path equal, just like in other games there are more common choices that the majority of players use, in Counter Strike the majority of the players play with the AK-47 as the rifle of choice, do you see valve buffing the SG 553 so more people play with this rifle? No, for the last 15 years people have used the AK-47 as there rifle of choice. Not every upgrade / tech path needs to be viable at every level.

No, you are wrong. The more we have equal strats the more NS2 will be strategy game as SC2 (CS:GO here is not a correct matching). The more we have same marine openings every time that don't counter by any alien opening the more NSL-matches become closer to ns2-combat or any other shooter. We have to make stronger some marines opening or make a decent anti-strat to armslab opening so we'll see more live strats and game will be more interesting.

Now some ideas.

Super-skulks.
I'm agree with Rollie and I already mentioned it 6 mounths ago in this thread and I would like to renew my first suggestion:
CRaZyCAT says

What about skulk's adrenaline will halved after taking an each grade?

This will force skulks to make a choice: leap or grades. This won't affect energy regen so no problems with res-biting. A softer version: reduce energy capacity by 1/4 of inital sum so after 3rd grade skulk will lose 3/4 of it's initial energy.

Flamethrower.
Like as GL, FT was inveted as a support weapon. While GL role was and still is make massive structure damage, FT main role was to debuff alien buildings and lifeforms. Seems like compmod creators at the certain moment forgot about it and now we can see what FT is. I suggest to make FT a separate alien debuff weapon. Let's throw aside energy burn and focus on other aspects: 1) burn effect must disable not only crag/whip/shade/shift structures but also should reduce hive heal, disable Harvesters, effectivly burn bonewall, maybe rupture and nutrient mist, disallow drifter to throw clouds 2) burn effect can disallow alien lifeforms to use abilities: Leap, Metabolize, Charge, Spores and Umbra, also can reduce amount of gorge's heal; burn effect duration on lifeforms can be reduced (2 sec after touching fire cone?) in order to don't make FT OP; 3) you can remove FT Structure and lifeform damage at all but keep on decent damaging on cysts; 4) don't change Ubra, Spore and Drifter clouds flammability features.

Power Purge
Why it have a cooldown? Remove it. Let comm to drop power surges as much as he want.

Nerve Gas Grenade
At that time I think nerve gas grenade is a bit weak. It doesn't worth to buy even in 5-marines hive push because other grenades is way better. Maybe increase gas duration or/and spread radius? Maybe also make all lifeforms that touch the gas scaned (motion tracking circle)?

Stab
I don't think Stab should be removed. I think Stab should be changed. The main problem of stab now is because it's too risky (can easly gain a lot damage) to use while stab charging is too long. It result in stab doesn't worth to use. How about allow fade to blink while charging stab but remove fade's air control completly until stab finished (disallow fade to change hop direction unless only with blink)? This will keep stab skill-dependent specific ability but let fade to escape if things become bad. Also this will make stab a great energy requiring ability => experienced fades can take adrenaline grade.
And please remove stab growl. Fade must be a sneaky liferom as well as skulk and any other except onos maybe. Stab growl isn't competitive-required, it's senseless.

Unused grades
1) Agree with Wob about camo.
2) Lerks doesn't use carapace as I know, I think it's not right, maybe increase amount of armor it gain by 10-15 armor?
3) Onos don't use adrenaline. Maybe buff boneshield a bit while increase its energy cost? It's not a perfect solution (onos still can use shift), maybe somebody can suggest something better.
4) Gorge doesn't use regen. Maybe remove regen cooldown after taking damage (for gorge only ofc)?

the problem with the flamethrower is that it is a very situational weapon only good when you have shade, crag, shift and other PvE nearby. this doesn't happen often enough to justify spending the resources on researching it. Maybe just make it available on default when armory is up? and tbh if those situations occur I would prefer the GL because high burst damage against those buildings + somewhat able to defend himself agaisnt lifeforms

our main problem atm is that aliens win too much in lower divisions... if anyone here has ideas on how to change that without screwing up high division balance please write them down here

Again, this is just an update post for the compmod discussion group in slack... the ideas aren't all mine, I may not 100% agree with them etc etc, but this is what is being discussed at the moment.

So, topics brought up recently are as follows...
1. Skulk changes to try for balance (diminishing returns on biomass? moving leap from biomass 4 to 5 or 6? maybe increase cost of leap?)
2. Drifter ability changes (if any, what and why)
3. Flamethrower changes? how can we make them more appealing.
4. Rifle-butt changes? (proposed increase to damage, making it 25 damage in total)
5. Grenade changes? (make them research only and spawn with them, but can't restock at armoury? any other ideas?)
6. Remove xeno entirely and replace with a stab-like ability for skulks.
7. Fade change (remove stab, replace with what? acid rocket currently popular choice)
8. Exo changes, if any?
9. nanoshield changes? (some have already been posted here in the forums, but other ideas are welcome)
10. Increase LMG spread, but have a CC research ability to decrease it back to current spread to aid those with lower accuracy?
11. Grenade Launcher... proposed idea - decrease projectile speed, give it an entirely straight trajectory, increase the projectile size, attach a sound to the projectile, damage remains unchanged.

May I ask how many players are taking part in this slack discussion? And how many of them are taw?

BauerJankins says

May I ask how many players are taking part in this slack discussion? And how many of them are taw?

15, 2 TAW.

actually 3

Mephilles says

actually 3

Ah yeah, Vindaloo.

So who proposes these, I'm sorry but I can only call it that, completely stupid ideas like ROCKET LAUNCHER or ACID ROCKET that would cause a huge gap between compmod and vanilla ns2?
A rocket launcher makes no sense at all, neither does something like acid rocket because it would just be too op vs exos for example.
And why the hell would you remove xeno? Just to "shake up comp ns2"???

IIRC rocket launcher was to create a low skill weapon that people in low division can use to fight lifeforms aswell, but being able to dodge it with enough skill. at the same time it would be as effective as current GL when it comes to PvE (except that you can't hit targets in blind spots anymore)

Acid Rocket (or something else) is being discussed because high div fades seem to have problems being able to do anything once a2, w2 shotguns are up (once 2 marines are grouped up together)

and for xeno... I have no idea why it was even suggested to replace that tbh^^

BauerJankins says

noise

Please try to use a more appropriate language.
Keep your arguments precise and concise.

BauerJankins says

So who proposes these, I'm sorry but I can only call it that, completely stupid ideas like ROCKET LAUNCHER or ACID ROCKET that would cause a huge gap between compmod and vanilla ns2?
A rocket launcher makes no sense at all, neither does something like acid rocket because it would just be too op vs exos for example.
And why the hell would you remove xeno? Just to "shake up comp ns2"???

Multiple people have agreed on all of these ideas at some points, others have disagreed... hence why the list is being discussed, not being finalized or implemented.

the RL topic meph has already answered.

Acid rocket was to replace stab, due to stab not being used at all in any division and people saying that the fade currently struggles against marine with A2+ so the idea behind AR is to make it similar to the gorge spit ability and cause purely armour damage.

Xeno was being discussed simply because people don't really like it as far as I can tell... the idea of replacing it with an ability similar to stab was brought up.

everything i've posted based on discussions is a summary of what has been spoken about... not what is going to happen, what has been agreed on etc... it is just what is being talked about.
And by popular demand, it won't happen again, the summaries etc will be purely for the people involved in the Slack discussions... if you want to join that, get in contact with someone already there. (Simple, Sephy, Dragon, Pelagir, Zafod, wob, golden, meph, myself etc are just a few that could invite you to join.)

BauerJankins says

May I ask how many players are taking part in this slack discussion? And how many of them are taw?

Why is that of so much importance? Don't confuse Kash's sum-ups as "what Kash suggests for comp-mod".

NS2 is so cool and so balanced right now, why should we change something, I don't see the point.

We are less than 40 people still playing this game this thread is now useless.

When I look at these lists I see a lot of ideas, which I'd qualify as "wild". They are quite invasive to the core-game, by either adding completely new content or by altering existing content into something very different.

To be honest, that gives me headaches. For 2 reasons:

1) The people currently joined into the discussion don't seem to have much experience in altering the core-game - correct me, if I'm wrong. Making a major change like adding a new weapon/attack type sounds to me like trying to lift 200 kg, without ever being in a gym before. You just gonna hurt yourself. I say this completely independently of me liking any of these ideas or not. Even, if I'd would be a fierce believer in the need of RL in NS2, I'd advise you guys to not tackle such a thing at this stage.

Imo the new folks in the comp-mod discussion/creation, should get some experience under their belt first, before they try anything even medium-sized. Tweaking a few numbers here or there - one at a time, to get a feeling on what is actually happening, if you do so. Thinking too big, as most of the current discussion items are, will not help you at this stage in anything. Do baby-steps - instead of aiming for the marathon straight from the start.

2) Even if the current folks could pull off anything such big, you are playing a quite large gamble. Making a change will have an influence on the playerbase. In other words: if the comp-mod screws up big time, people will leave the game. The larger the change the more likely it is, that some people say: "nope, this is not my game anymore". This sounds a bit like blackmailing: "don't do any changes or players will leave!". Well, some have actually argued here, that the changes in compmod have the potential to keep the game fresh and compelling - either by creating more variety or by just altering the meta.

That is true to some extent. But, imo, the more invasive the change is, the more risk (in loosing players) you create, while only getting a bit of more "win" (by improving the game). As discussed earlier, there are better methods to drag people into NS2, then making an awesome compmod.

On top of that any change, which makes competitive play more different from vanilla NS2 raises the hurdle for players to convert. Yes, there are people out there, who said: "I don't like compmod, this HMG-stuff, and all those changes... I have no clue what to do and what is good." When we did the Newcomer-Tournament there had been a lot of people complaining about how different compmod is and seriously asked me, if the tournament could not take place without it. Imagine what those people would think about RL, acid-spitting fades and what-not...

For me a very important question the folks in the compmod-discussion should answer first, before thinking of anything else is the following:

What do we actually want to achieve with the compmod? What is its goal?

Should it balance games through divisions as best as possible?
Should it be a source of additional content to the game? If so, why?
Should it change the meta? If so, why?
Should it make the current content more enjoyable/usefull? If so, why?

If you settle that question a lot of other pieces will fall into place by themselves. Before you settle that question any proposal is just bound to hit a wall, because expectations to compmod differ. There is no answer to the question: "Is a stab-like attack on skulks a good thing?". But you can hope for an answer to questions like: "Will a stab-like attack on skulks improve balance between marines/aliens through divisions?"

tudy says

Wall of Text

Everything you said has already been topic in the slack.

All we need to do is bring new players and teams into ns2, i don't see how buffing marines early game is going to increase the player retention or even spark any initial interest from pub players. Comp mod is so balanced right now we are seeing results echoing the balance of certain maps, for example marines winning summit and aliens winning veil.

Without going off-topic, we just need some sort of reward for competing in the ensl. A badge for the division winners which they keep until the next season or something would be amazing. Even if it was only applicable for the winners and runners up another rookie tournament, it would actually give a reason to come here and listen to bauer constantly shit from his mouth.

skyice says

Without going off-topic, we just need some sort of reward for competing in the ensl. A badge for the division winners which they keep until the next season or something would be amazing. Even if it was only applicable for the winners and runners up another rookie tournament, it would actually give a reason to come here and listen to bauer constantly shit from his mouth.

It's been talked a lot and it will never happen. CDT doesn't want to promote any community in particular (lol) and accordingly, won't do such a thing for the NSL. The other way would be to go through a mod but it can't be done with the current NSL server, either it goes through NS2+ or NSL mod since the current server would drudge too much till it shuts down. That and the fact there isn't plenty of modders remaining who are not part of the CDT already. So you better drop that idea until the CDT starts caring about what's left of the remaining communities in NS2. Which I doubt will ever happen. But yeah, that would have been awesome.

Why don't you pay for a better server for the NSL and solve the problem? You don't care enough?

Im confused.
This can actually happen with a new server?
Is it jiriki's server that isnt good enough?
Didnt that shit cost like £400 euros for a year?

Why dont we get a better server?

Haha, look at the big spenders with somebody elses money!

Pela, can you elaborate on the server problematic?

skyice says

Im confused.
This can actually happen with a new server?
Is it jiriki's server that isnt good enough?
Didnt that shit cost like £400 euros for a year?

Why dont we get a better server?

Two years in a row, I offered to get the nsl site hosted for free and on a better server. Two years in a row, ignored or rejected. Go figure.

Would be great to get some clarification on this please?
Why aren't we using Zeframs better server?
If it means the badge idea could actually happen then #LetsDoItYeah?

And yeah its defo not your money simple, aint seen you on the donation list bruv.

skyice says

And yeah its defo not your money simple, aint seen you on the donation list bruv.

Did I ever claim it was?

I'm still not sure why anyone would imply you need the CDT to do this, when all you have to do is do some changes to the NSL API and then retrieve the badges on the NSL mod (which is already done partly for admins/refs) and you're about done.

But it's always nice to blame the CDT, which is what I find the stupidiest part.