i posted on the steamworkshop:
would it be possible to have allways spawns that have highest distance like atrium+sub acess or data core+flight control (not crossroads)
and random which side is who:
- random if aliens or marines will be at atrium or sub access (in case of atrium+sub access senario)
- random if aliens or marines will be at flight control or data core (in case of flight control+ data core senario)
i think that suits best for this map if you want to prevent close spawns.
and i think for summit its the best solution for veil or tram that dosnt work that well ofc.
There are very few close spawns that are unbalanced, namely Flight-Sub and Marines Warehouse / Aliens Server. Mendasp released a mod that modifies the spawn possibilities to prevent these from occurring, but he also excluded a few other close spawns that are not, in my opinion, unbalanced.
I feel that removing all close spawns will reduce the variation in games and become stale after a while. As for the low-risk base rush argument, I would point to the TN vs. Northernlights ESL match for which I can't find the stream. On Tram, TN spawned in Warehouse, Northernlights in Server, and Northernlights did a 5 skulk base rush. TN was able to wipe them, then sent 3 marines into Server and egglocked them. This shows that close spawn base rushes are more high-risk, high-reward than cross spawn base rushes.
TL;DR:
Few close spawns are unbalanced, base rushes aren't low-risk, variation is good.
I agree that some close spawns are worse than others, but in my opinion it doesn't make the other close spawns give good gameplay.
On any type of close spawn situation, aliens still get an easy second hive option.
Which is still a rather large imbalance in my mind, since getting tier2 in this game should not be too easy. Tier 2 is very powerful.
The general idea I get from this thread is that people generally don't like the close spawns, but they like the variety that random spawns brings, which I do too.
Due to this, I think we are gonna adress summit and tram like this for season 2:
summit: Random spawns, but only cross spawns. The vent in sub will be re-opened on nsl summit to make it more viable as alien spawn again.
tram: Remove the server vs warehouse option, but keep the random spawns.
Please note that we are NOT changing spawnlocations on veil, as there are no close spawns on that map at all.
More opinions on this are welcome, and might still change the final decision.
I'm a bit late to this discussion, but I'd like to put my vote down with the 'close spawns are ok' group. There are a few problematic combos (like the Flight-Sub) but those are more map issues, than close spawn ones. I feel close spawns, like cheese strats, add value to NS2 as long as they are
- High risk/high reward
- Have a viable counter
NS2 is already so bare on the strategy front that I'd hate to see another selection of strats eliminated.
The only reason why people want to get rid of close spawns is because they blame there losses on close spawns. They go "Oh, if it this were cross spawns, this game totally would have went the other way."
I also think that close spawns are OK. Like Golden and xtc said, variation is good.
Also, the poll that was up for this was something like ~66 yes and ~57 no which I think shows that this is a mixed subject that doesn't really have a big majority support. I would like to see this removed as an ENSL rule as close spawns are part of the game and shouldn't be removed.
I don't agree with this. I personally don't like close spawns because when you only have one res point between two starting tech points, each team can effectively win the game in 1-2 engagements. While I've lost games to this, I've won just as many because of it, if not more. It's a very cheap way to win the game and that is what I personally don't like about it. The game progression is screwed over completely by close spawns due to the low traveltime between mainbases.
Variation is good yes and it is still there. Spawns are still random, you can spawn at every tech point. Which means on summit there are 4 different scenarios that can happen, and that's already more variation than NS1 had. Close spawns is a symptom of completely random spawns being implemented on maps made for static spawns and it directly destroys the balance the maps were created to have. It is not just a few of the close spawn scenarios that causes these problems. It is all of the close spawns scenarios.
In NS1 ns_tanith kind of had the same thing. Waste hive, being very close to marines natural expansions(double) was extremely effective for denying that part of the map, since you spawned so close to it. But at the same time Waste was also cut off from the rest of the map, so the hive both had advantage and disadvantage. So while being a good spawn for denying that part of the map, it was mostly percieved as a bad spawn because it was hard to hold res nodes. It is the same problem close spawn give, except it makes it easier for aliens to hold their expansions and easier to deny marines natural expansions, which makes the problem even worse. I'd suggest you give it a try, the game plays much better with these spawnsets.
Yes, the vote was fairly even. That's why we put up this discussion. We learned that variation is good, but close spawns make for bad gameplay. That is why we made random cross-spawns instead of static spawns.
I find most comp (and the majority of pub) matches are determined by the first one or two engagements regardless of spawn. If you win them, you'll likely win the match (with some exceptions, mostly rushes).
If anything, cross spawns just arbitrarily drags out matches whose outcomes are already determined.
At close spawns this can happen to very even teams as well. Making it highly unfair to have a match decided(egg lock etc.) by these few engagements. On cross spawns, teams at about the same level at least have the chance to fight back and get back into the game if they lose those first 1-2 engagements. It's very cheesy to win like this, spamming meds in the first engagement should not give you a certain win. 1 minute matches are very boring and anti-climatic for both teams. Skill level irrelevant. Cross spawns at least gives you those 30-60 extra seconds where you can try to get back into the game.
And on cross spawns you play to deny each others expansions and usually dont worry about the main bases until you can finish the other team off, or pick off an upgrade. Like the game is supposed to be played. Not that cheesy egglock rushing etc. that close spawns are giving.
If already decided matches are getting dragged out, you should blame your opponents for not going to the hive and finishing it. Spawns irrelevant. You can always "gg" and F4.
I can certainly see how that can happen in theory, but are there any good examples of it occurring in practice? Many of the marginal map imbalances come into play when teams are closely skilled (e.g. spawn location, vent layout, prop placement, etc). Any one of them could sway the outcome if they impacted a critical part of a match (i.e. defending an RT, taking out a pg), that it seems silly to single out close spawns from other potential imbalances or luck as the reason for a win or loss.
Also, cheese is vital component of any RTS (or RTS-hybrid) game, even if it does lead to the occasional frustratingly short match. In NS2, it plays the part of punishing teams who put expansion (e.g. quick RTs) over defense (e.g. leaving a marine or two near the main) or scouting (e.g. obs or just good game sense when you don't make contact within the first minute or so). As long as cheese doesn't become the dominant strat, which was fairly rare in comp matches with close spawns, it should still be allowed and viable imo.
I suppose I should have worded it as the team whose likely going to win (e.g. more skilled) is also going to win the early engagements in most of the cases.
I don't like to disagree with you because you have way more comp experience than me, but from what I've watched, played, and the ns2stats data I've been analyzing, many comp matchups are more or less determined by the difference in the basic fps skillset (e.g. shooting, ambushing, movement, positioning). Only when that skill difference is within a certain margin does things such as map imbalances, strategy, or game issues come into play.
I'm also working on trying to quantify that difference so I can be more specific than "close".
Of course frags matter, you have to kill the other team to win the game. But it works both ways. Did you win the game because you got a lot of frags, or did you get a lot of frags because you were winning? The winning team will almost always have a significant k/d advantage, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they won because they fragged a lot.
A lot of the time we (arc) barely hold above 1/1 k/d in the early to mid game as marines, but when we get the upgrades and shotguns going, and even more so when we get jetpacks, our k/d skyrockets. In a situation like that, it just isn't accurate to say that you won because you fragged a lot.
You can learn a lot from statistics, but they can also lead you to draw the wrong conclusions by misinterpreting them.
I should clarify that I do agree with much of what you're saying, although I would add teamwork and gamesense to your "basic fps skillset". The point I was trying to get across is that we have to be very careful with how we use statistics.
Yeah, I expressed myself a bit poor in my original posts so its a case of miscommunication more than disagreement. Though I do hear hear ya regarding the proper use of statistics.
My original idea was to quantify this effect by looking at the game-end KDR between the teams which, unsurprisingly, show that the winning team almost always (e.g. 64 out of 68 matches with data from the Invitational Qualifer) has a team KDR > 1. However, with so few data points, matches in which the winning team simply racks up the kills late-game could be messing up the data. Since almost all of the games this weekend were casted, I'm thinking of trying a different approach where I correlate the winner with either how the first 10-20 kills turn out or the kills in the first 2-3 min of the game (I'm not sure which would be a more comparable measure). If my hypothesis is correct, then the match winner should also be the one who gets the majority of the early-game kills.
