Remove the health gauge!
Haze
O RLY? Join Date: 2003-07-07 Member: 18018Members, Constellation
O RLY? Join Date: 2003-07-07 Member: 18018Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Add to the immersion and strategy of NS?</div>Instead of giving a static health gauge, why not give players (aliens and marines) a diagram of their unit in the bottom left instead, coloring areas that have been damaged. The way the marine has been damaged effects his movements in the game.
Imagine if a marine got his leg chomped on, and he dropped to one knee, still able to shoot, but was rendered immobile for about three seconds. After the three second period was up, he'd rise to his feet again and limp along at reduced speeds until he got a health pack. Or if a marine was gored in the arm, and he temporarily couldn't use both hands to fire his weapon. After he recovered, he could use both arms to fire, but his crosshair would sway ever so slightly as to make aiming harder. What about if a marine got knocked in the head, and his vision went to black for a very short period of time, then returned, but continually zoned in and out of 100% visibility and 50% dimming? A marine that was effected by spores or hit in the chest earlier could have coughing fits for a short, short period of time (think one minute) and would have his camera shake ever so slightly every time he coughed.
Think about seeing a squad of marines with one guy kind of falling behind, limping along as hes being stalked by a skulk in the shadows. For a second hes too far from his squad and is picked off from the group. The rest of the squad swings around to fire, but only finds their mangled squad mate's body.
I think this would add to just more than immersion, but strategy as well. Aliens trying to stop a marine advance could prioritize for the marines' legs, which would either force the entire group to slow down or split the group into two, for example.
I realize that the clan scene might have a problem with this, but as always: learn to adapt. ^_^
Imagine if a marine got his leg chomped on, and he dropped to one knee, still able to shoot, but was rendered immobile for about three seconds. After the three second period was up, he'd rise to his feet again and limp along at reduced speeds until he got a health pack. Or if a marine was gored in the arm, and he temporarily couldn't use both hands to fire his weapon. After he recovered, he could use both arms to fire, but his crosshair would sway ever so slightly as to make aiming harder. What about if a marine got knocked in the head, and his vision went to black for a very short period of time, then returned, but continually zoned in and out of 100% visibility and 50% dimming? A marine that was effected by spores or hit in the chest earlier could have coughing fits for a short, short period of time (think one minute) and would have his camera shake ever so slightly every time he coughed.
Think about seeing a squad of marines with one guy kind of falling behind, limping along as hes being stalked by a skulk in the shadows. For a second hes too far from his squad and is picked off from the group. The rest of the squad swings around to fire, but only finds their mangled squad mate's body.
I think this would add to just more than immersion, but strategy as well. Aliens trying to stop a marine advance could prioritize for the marines' legs, which would either force the entire group to slow down or split the group into two, for example.
I realize that the clan scene might have a problem with this, but as always: learn to adapt. ^_^
Comments
Would this not affect HA i guess ?
Think about seeing a squad of marines with one guy kind of falling behind, limping along as hes being stalked by a skulk in the shadows. For a second hes too far from his squad and is picked off from the group.
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i like this part, it sounds like a pack of lions targeting the frail old antelope that has strayed from the herd <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
i'm all for area effect dammage, and having dammage effect gameplay... to an extent. it would definately make the game more imersive, but the problem is, how could a medpack magicially re-attach or re-grow a marines severed leg?
to make it realistic, if a marine had a limb ripped off, then he would have 20sec left to bleed to death, with the screen slowly fading black due to blood loss. a medpack would only prolong this time for a little longer, and he wouldnt be able to fight effectively in the meantime.
people would also get annoyed when they keep getting hit in the head and play most of the game with fuzzy vision... if this is done for a prolonged period it could induce dizzy spells or headaches for the user.
also you would still need the HP bar. if an onos rushes base, he will be shot at from all angles, therefore the inage of his body will be covered in red. you wont be able to tell how close he is to dying, and wouldnt be able to bail out in time. same with fade.
i doubt many of these ideas (if any) would be implemented into NS2 as it could drasticially alter gameplay, but i'd definately like to see a "realistic dammage" custom mod.
So until the day when videogames unlock all five senses, and we are able to physically move in a virtual world, we will have to do without complete realism...
i like realistic video games, but NS isn't one of them, it it to fast passed to be realistic.
it would be really lame to make marines lame and then leave them unable to fully function. imagine a good skulk that dodges through a group and bites everyones trigger arm. then leaves them alive, how much fun would that be to play if you were never dead, just unable to shoot straight.
it would be really lame to make marines lame and then leave them unable to fully function. imagine a good skulk that dodges through a group and bites everyones trigger arm. then leaves them alive, how much fun would that be to play if you were never dead, just unable to shoot straight.
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at the same time you could do the same sort of dammage to aliens, shoot off a skulks leg for an example, making him hobble instead of run...
like that quote from starship troopers "you can shoot off a bug's leg, and he's still 83% combat effective. aim for the nerve stem, and put them down for good" <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
shoot off a few skulk limbs and they cant climb walls etc.
but yeah it might change the gameplay much too drastically to the point its annoying
Crippling alien movement is just wrong, as it's their counter for marines being ranged.
Crippling movement is simply annoing and only works to slow down the pace of the game, the novelty of shooting/biteing legs would also wear off in due time.
And if to balance things out, marines could survive more damage, but having to fight with a handicap with their last health points.
The problem isn't to much the alteration of gameplay, that's simply a question of balancing and tweaking how strong effects this damage system should have. Marines wouldn't mind a few seconds of more life crippled...if it also gave them a slight chance of getting out of it alive.
As always, it all comes down to what the devs feel they can invest development resources in. It be cool to try out and playtest, and I'm sure they could make it both work and be <b>fun</b>. It depends on if it's the best use of development time.
While it my sound good in story, it is not a good idea for a fast paced game such as Natural Selection. Some of the ideas you bring up are good, this is not a realistic game and would slow down the typical gameplay.
same could go for kharaa
acutally maybe this would be a cool way to dramatize the end of a game - like for example if marines are losing - and there are no IPs left or the commandchair is destroyed basically once there is a definate loss for either team the game would go into "game end mode" and all of these would apply - marines take more to kill but they get crippled until they cannot move and shoot and then finally die <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> just like at the end of a movie when a hero dies <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
same could go for kharaa
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thats just cruel... how about at the end game, when it is certain they will loose, they get that final hero boost, (5x hp, faster reload / cool down on weapons, etc) and then the other team has to take the guy down.
you'd get that last stand aspect and have it be fun for both sides. (shudders last stand with an onos)
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/asrifle.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::asrifle::" border="0" alt="asrifle.gif" />
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/asrifle.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::asrifle::" border="0" alt="asrifle.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tiny.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::onos::" border="0" alt="tiny.gif" />
I kind of like this idea. Just remember though, there would need to be a great deal of little tweaks here and there to balance this out.