Should Comp Mod during offseason be different from seasonal comp mod/a gather mod? It seemed like when catpacks were cheaper, it added some life to gathers. It's also difficult to have a top level gather. I would like to go back to 2 res catpacks with 5 second duration this time during offseason, which I think would make gathers more fun. I think it plays well based on not playing the game at high div 1 level for gathers.
Perhaps we can also test an idea on changing how sg works vs onos and/or machine gun damage vs onos.
I think the only valid reason to implement changes to comp mod off season is that it would cause unfairness during a season. And you have the time to test changes and update the mod during that time. We definitely should not have multiple revisions of comp mod.
Comp mod doesn't work only for high level play, it works for all skill levels. It improves the game and makes it more balanced... That is the point, a game is balanced or it isn't, by trying to balance for random skill levels you are falling into the same trap as UWE.
But what do you really want to change in the game?
Catpacks makes game more fun because it makes it more arcade. But do we really want to see ns2 as arcade shooter game? For this purpose another game mods like SWS or Combat should be exist.
For now current game meta in compmod remains quite balanced except some details on the top highest level of skill and on the low levels of skill. Game's current main issue is lack of diversity. You can only improve game's experiance by adding variously shaped meta and adding new possible strats and ideally it should possibly fix the problems on top highest level of skill too but not make them worse.
I agree with crazy cat here, well almost. I agree that lack of diversity is the main problem but more diversity is not only achieved by adding new stuff but also by nerfing the things that make the game so stale.
Back then armslab for example was 20 tres (is 15 now?). I highly recomend bringing that back since armslab first is seen quite alot lately.
Shotguns are still teh most OP weapon in the game btw.
And atm it seems like crag hive is the way to go for almost every team (I know Horror Show goes shift). So either people don't know how to play the other hives or crag is too strong. Tbh I'd like to try something that Ghouls balance mod is doing which is moving crush to shift and vampirism without camo to crag
Decent idea with crush to shift, but is this needed for comp? I feel like crush is something you get when you're going to bite rt's, but you're mainly focused on cara and regen with lifeforms. People definitely seem to want every hive to be played evenly. I don't think this necessarily has to happen though. Just because the game plays one hive more of the time, doesn't mean that's the most important thing. Balance also matters. Sure you could move regen away from cara so people use another hive more, but does that make the game better?
Switching silence back to shade hive made sense because you were going to encounter silent skulks early game and it wasn't going to be fun to play. That wasn't changed so people play the different hives evenly, it's because of the game-play.
Also, catpacks. I understand Crazy's reaction, but I think you're over doing it. Just because cat packs are 2 res with 5 second duration, doesn't mean the game turns into an arcade game. I feel like when people think about catpacks, they assume it means automatic marine domination and lifeforms dying all over the place. I didn't see that when they were changed before, it just made the game feel like it was faster. IMO, the game is better when it feels faster. This is why you want catpacks used over people waiting for jps, why you want cysts with low health...etc.
You still have to be smart about how you spend your res as a marine team. You could make the point that 12 second duration right now is crazy. I also have no evidence that this wouldn't be balanced at the top. I should have made the point differently. This wouldn't be just to make gathers more fun, it would be testing it to see if the game plays better. I feel like the catpack change back to 3 res, 12 second duration was out of fear it wouldn't be balanced at the top. Not due to any evidence.
Catpacks-I would like to try the catpack idea after the season. 2 tres, 5 second duration. Reason, speeds up the game or makes players feel like the game is playing faster. I think it goes along well with low cyst health in comp mod, gorge speed in comp mod, skulk speed increase from vanilla, lerk movement changes from vanilla, infestation speed increase from vanilla. The game is fun when it's fast, and the catpack idea still makes marines make smart choices. It also can result you in wasting all your res if you don't make big plays with it.
Machine Guns - changing these to being unlocked when you advance the armory, also at 18-20 pres. You could make the machine gun slightly lower pres than sg. If SG is still the best weapon in the game, but machine gun was a little cheaper to get...you might see it used more. It would be more risky to increase the damage of the machine gun or change the onos health. That would be just guessing, and could throw other things off. Making the machine gun easier to get seems like a subtle change that could make the game more interesting.
Flamethrower- I haven't tried to talk about this much, because not sure if the flamethrower needs to be a bigger part of the game. The best suggestion I like for changing this would be eliminating FF on structures with flamethrower. That might be a subtle change that works.
Both FT and GL is a support weapon and they perform their role well but ppl use GL only because GL also make great damage and can kill lifeforms effectively while FT remains just a support weapon. In 10v10 FT theoretically still worth to buy since in 10v10 you have another 8 field players but in 6v6 it just doesn't worth to make 1 of 5 field players a clear support with no real damage (even theoretically).
You can make FT usable in 6v6 if you increase its dps or if you make it secondary weapon. I like the idea of making it secondary so marine with FT can put lifeforms or PvE structures on fire then switch to the main weapon and make dps.
If you let it remain a primary clear support weapon it will never be a bigger part of the game
@deck this reminds me of something: In high level play I think marines are still superior to aliens. I think the reason for that is how easy it is to kill infestation atm and that being said I think cyst health is too low atm. I suggest increasing the cyst health to 250 so shotguns need 2 shots to kill a cyst. That is a minor change but I think this does give aliens an edge when it comes to the resgame (especially the tres spend for replacing cysts)
Also about MG you could also just flip the coin and make shotguns cost 23-25 pres instead (since I mentioned that shotguns are OP)
@crazycat FT on secondary have been tried before and never got used there. I think the reason for that is that the pistol is probably one of the deadliest weapons in the game, especially when it comes to DPS on aliens without armor. I also a bug in compmod when FT was switched back to being a primary weapon where the firerate of the weapon was doubled,
Well it melted fades pretty hard. Anyway I have been talking with steelcap about the FT and we think that it should be changed mechanically slightly. Atm you deal most damage with the FT if you aim at the ground and set the environment on fire, which is also causing team damage. We were thinking about changing the FT in a way that you can't set the ground on fire anymore but instead it gets a DOT that stacks (similar to bilebomb). And if the dot is stronger than the current one the weapon might get used more often.
Can we try buffing hand grenades?
ELOgain have been toying around a bit with them lately, but at 2 res for 1 grenade they just aren't worth it, especially with a carry capacity of only one.
Maybe try the original 2 nades for 3 res, combined with the current carry-over to the next live, or even with drop-on-death.
Changing it so marines can hold 2 nades instead of 1 might work better for comp. Can't really spam nades as easy with less players on a team in a comp match. This might be a good change.
