Nah I like random hives. On good maps where the hives are balanced; it encourages different tactics and variation.
Shotgun spread is a shitter tbh, BUT, the shotgun would be too strong early game if it had the consistent spread of old. It made sg-sniping just ridiculously easy.
I know your point Zamma 'cus people would just pick hives like fusion, cargo blah blah... but, there's a flip side, some clans would then be able to plan far more specific strats based on 'bad hive' such as chamber placements specific to the perks of that hive.
I think overall, choosing a hive would be much more fun, everyone knows how much of a shitter it can be if you suddenly get alpha on lost when the other team had cargo.
One reason NS is such a good game with long lasting values is because of the variation in gameplay each time you play. Random hives has alot to do with this. It basically means you have to make proper chamber choices, node caps and "where to rush". These don't just affect you but will also pan out what your opponent is going to do. Like pressuring the nodes ect. If you were to play lost for example, it'd very similar each time. Cargo hive -> nodes at external and temp. -> 3 man pressure to temp./ext. at start. I mean it'd just get boring.
hmm i think you're kinda missing my argument a bit.
If you played on ns_lost vs. the old team.fantasy (SC RUSH THROUGH THE VENT) or tts, not always the same strat. I think people are more creative than you give credit for. People could plan for equi and alpha hive to take advantage of the hives benefits.
seriously, strats these days are quite samey because teams have to make the strat viable for all 3 hives, if you can control the hive more, you can control the strat more.
Well that's the weakness in the teams you play then. One thing I loved about sprogga was we were competely versatile; We had many tactics for each map and each tactic would be effected by what hive; exploiting the pros and cons the hive gave. For instance on metal, while we used a basic mc tactic (due to map size), we used a different number of starting nodes for each seperate hive. On tanith we could run either mcs, dcs and scs and each hive would effect the placement of the chambers and how many/which nodes we got. Random hive ENFORCES versatility. If you're not versatile then you are at a definate disadvantage against a team that is versatile. Choice hives means you don't have to be as you're always getting the hive to suite your tactic. I see where you are coming from though, and actually think you make a good point (for once lol :D). Still random hives make each round just that little bit different. It's the only random part of the game I like. I blame hive inbalances on the map; not the game.
p.s. But yeah... that vent rush isn't anything new... hai miau vs pixon.
I was doing hive based strats many years ago, but I prefer to be able to do FAR more specific strats in my clans without having to learn 3 for each map just to find out which one I'm doing after I type ready, it's not easy when you're old, the memory starts to wobble.. soz ard.
Only veil??? Now that is an insanely shit argument, I wouldn't even call it an argument; considering I've played orbital, metal, tanith, veil, eclipse and origin and I barely play gathers.. dunno which gather system you're playing.
That's exactly my point though lump. The teams that cba loose an advantage. Random hives adds another skill depth. While maybe not great now with a lack of active teams. If NS was truely competetive with many teams fighting for #1, that edge gives more depth in gameplay.
you're also creating more depth by allowing teams to focus a very large amount of detail on hive specific strats and giving teams the chance to refine these strats within a short time ready for official matches.
I don't see any real benefit to random hives that doesn't have at least an equal and if not better alternative from having the ability to choose hives.
I can remember one time for an official, rawR spent ages working on this really awesome strat that only worked for 2 of the hives. The other hive was no option but a standard boring strat.. Guess which hive we got. lol. All that effort felt like quite a waste of time.
Can add in the server-side patch - grenade launcher fix? The Essence in that it could be charged stage by stage, similarly to a shot-gun that it was possible to enclose to 1 grenade and twice having pressed Mouse1 at once to it to shoot, instead of it was necessary to put all 4 (even if in a stock with itself only 1-2-3)... Of course, if this is allowed.
Actually it only will make grenade cup discharges not the disposable weapon, and often used, similarly to minigun. 125 dmg is not a cheat is fatally only for skulks.
And also it will be possible to pay back cost this gun - for 15 resources HMG can kill without ceremony 5 skulks from 1 clip (it will give us 10-20 resources for comm) whereas GL - will put 250*4 = 1000 dmg to resource tower (hey, in fact it too costs 15 resources, really?). Splash-damage from grenade launcher can be used and in fight also when it can be charged gradually, and not just for " clearing of structures ".
1. stand next to an armoury.
2. fire one grenade.
3. click on armoury to get ammo for gl.
4. reload once.
5. /repeat
You get an almost constant stream of grenades being thrown out.. it's most abused when marines refuse to give up their base as lerks cannot support higher lifeforms effectively for taking the ms and 125 damage is quite a bitch if you're about to blink/charge/leap/fly into a room of sgs and hmgs.
GL's are already VERY powerful when people know how to use them; remember you have more than one clip.
I've just realised that this isn't a fix for public NS, this is a competitive community.. most of what I just said isn't as bad as I made out. lol. Still quite abusable though in one situation, the fix could be worth considering for comp play, once you take down the hive and you wanna roam the map a bit, it would be nice to put up a fight with gl having a 30 second reload time....
if you remember, the gl used to reload like this.. they removed it (back when I was a PT(this is how I know about it)) because you could spam grenades without much of a gap if you stand next to an armoury.
Can someone fix the bug that makes everyone turn right 90º in the readyroom
That doesn't happen any more!? It used to go in your clip for every weapon, so I don't see how this is abusable. Seems like a really good idea actually.
ZMEY MAKES A GREAT FIRST APPEARANCE AND WITHOUT CEREMONY KILLS 5 SKULKS
