Alien team management
invader Zim
Join Date: 2007-09-20 Member: 62376Members
Join Date: 2007-09-20 Member: 62376Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Aliens can work together for the greater good?</div>On public servers there seams to be a problem with team work on the alien team in Ns1
Namely players dont want to gorge, or too many do. and gorges get in adiquate protection from their team so they wast res on structures that dont last. When i am gorge i often have to drop loads of ocs to protect my self which shudnt be nessesary. Each player on the alien team controls their own res pool, this is a major strength and weakness. Is a strenght because it stops one player desimating the team. Its a weakensss because many players act indivdually. This individual play action often leads gorge players undefended. it also means that the players that go gorge loose out on res, as they sacrifice it for the team, in the form of buildings.
Also its difficult to get an alien team animated together across the map. In my experience on pubs, an alien team only really works well if theres a good gorge player and a good assualt leading / organising player, this isnt very comon on most servers.
The marine team has a comm and centeralisd resources, meaning they are at the mercy of their comms abilities but all their building arrangements and stratergies are more easily coordinated, shared out and planned.
For the rines to cap a node a player just has to go there and request it from the comm, and hopfully they will cap it. For the aliens a gorge has to go there, spend his res pool, while his team mates watch out for him. All to often the team work on the alien team is only as developed as that of a cs server. Id like ns2 to promote team play on the alien team, how can this be done?
This may have been discussed before, and my post may be poorly worded, but then n/m
Namely players dont want to gorge, or too many do. and gorges get in adiquate protection from their team so they wast res on structures that dont last. When i am gorge i often have to drop loads of ocs to protect my self which shudnt be nessesary. Each player on the alien team controls their own res pool, this is a major strength and weakness. Is a strenght because it stops one player desimating the team. Its a weakensss because many players act indivdually. This individual play action often leads gorge players undefended. it also means that the players that go gorge loose out on res, as they sacrifice it for the team, in the form of buildings.
Also its difficult to get an alien team animated together across the map. In my experience on pubs, an alien team only really works well if theres a good gorge player and a good assualt leading / organising player, this isnt very comon on most servers.
The marine team has a comm and centeralisd resources, meaning they are at the mercy of their comms abilities but all their building arrangements and stratergies are more easily coordinated, shared out and planned.
For the rines to cap a node a player just has to go there and request it from the comm, and hopfully they will cap it. For the aliens a gorge has to go there, spend his res pool, while his team mates watch out for him. All to often the team work on the alien team is only as developed as that of a cs server. Id like ns2 to promote team play on the alien team, how can this be done?
This may have been discussed before, and my post may be poorly worded, but then n/m
Comments
What I suggest would be a system where players could receive bonuses for guarding / helping gorges, or for working together. For instance, for attacking in groups, you could gain slight damage boosts, when near a gorge, your natural regeneration is boosted, and perhaps by sticking near a gorge for long enough (out of combat) you could receive a small boost to your maximum HP, gain extra resources, or something like that to encourage players to work together.
Save the gorges!
<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#>/pudgy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::gorge::" border="0" alt="pudgy.gif" />
They rarely come help, even when I am helping them like crazy with healing, chambers and hives... I think they only help when I am in a hive, buit then they are protecting the hive. *sigh* Well, there could probably some easy reward system somehow, like if a fade or lerk killing a marine gives them 2 res now, then if they do it within a certain vacinity of a gorge, they would get 3 res instead. Or maybe just the gorges sort of give off a bonus, like a ranged bonus to anyone near them.
Example: Lerk bite does 45 damage, but when in X distance from gorge it does 65% more. And also the kill bonus or something. So they would want to help the gorges out more.
The only other thing I was able to think of was simply making them more dependant on gorges over all. Healing chambers doing most of thw work vs using upgrades only for healnig or whatever. This way they will always be like"no save the gorges!" instead of screw it i'll just keep gettin points. Because if the gorges die, then they have to travel all the way to a hive to heal fast enough. I don't know, because then it might take away the effectivness and worth of chambers like DCs and MCs, but definitely needs to be more important for gorges to live then just to build hives so the fades can do whatever. They do need us to build, but once they have fade with MCs or Dcs it seems like we are worthless to them at that point.... <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#>/pudgy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::gorge::" border="0" alt="pudgy.gif" />
I do find the 45damage+65%=165% (~75damage) for the lerk bite on the high side though...
what i think needs to be changed is less reward haveing the most kills
the whole XP unlock things, rewards at end of maps, stand near gorge to get more RFK, or getting RFK in general is just hurting, the gorge.
###### removeing the score board would be best. now you dont have every clown raceing to gib marines faster than every other clown.
unlocked upgrades rewards all that seams nice works for battle feild.
it iwl lbe intersting ot see if it works for NS.
1 allowing other aliens to assist building - rines all build (usually) if the aliens can all build it may encourage them to go help to gorge. The gorge would still be the only alien that can drop buildings and build them efficiently.
2 Give the gorge a redemption always so it doesnt suffer so much from a lack of protection - problem with this is it cud further discourage team play.
3 change the way the aline res pool works - buildings come from different res pool so theres less of a personal sacrific to drop structures from ur res pool. Ocs should probs still come from your res pool, but if all buidlings that support the team came from a separate team res pool that my encourage gorgies. The problem with this one gorge could spend all the res
4 a better communications on the aline team - some sort of interface for sorting out a plan or dispensing orders
5 education of players - a tutorial in basic team tactics should be shipped with the game so players no how to work together, and team play is envouraged
6 a gorge help button - the gorge could get a button which either allows it to send a warning message to all other team members telling tehm they need help, or it could teleport one alien to assist him. - this may be open to exploitation. Since the gorge is probably the least mobile alien class, its ability to teleport one alien to it would not be to open to abuse if it cost high energy and could only summon a skulk or lerk type alien.
Some stuff from the top of my head includes..
<u>More mobility</u>
Gorges suffer greatly from their lack of ability to climb walls and/or get around quickly. They might be a builder class not suited for combat, but numerous times while playing NS I've succumbed to the retardedness of falling out of a vent or off a ledge and not being able to get back into it and then having my brains blown out by a passing marine. Yes, this might sound like the players fault, but tbh gorges should have some form of wall climbing ability. Atm i can think of two options:
a) wallwalk like a skulk, and
b) an official gorge webhook (like as seen on many custom servers)
Even though gorges aren't meant to get around that quickly (the name Gorge doesn't help) they should have some form of escape besides MC or bhop leetness (which is prly gone in NS2). Wallwalk would help a gorge out alot, but it would have to be dumbed down version of skulk wallwalk. A gorgehook would help IMMENSELY (i know people here arent fans of custom servers and/or mods, but wth this is just pure genius.) Not only do gorgehook/grapplehooks help the gorge get around but its somewhat a form of defense as well, as the gorge can retreat into a nearby vent or overhead some OC's. The web hook would have to be <b>slow</b> and possibly break if the gorge is hit while trying to hook onto something.
<u>Give Spit a snare effect</u>
Gorge's spit ability is crap. Period. I know Gorges aren't attack units, but wth. Spit is useless. Replace it with some kind of faster traveling spread-shot snare (think shotgun but extremely dumbed down) or put the snare ontop of the damage it already inflicts. This way the gorge can effectively snare more than one person if stuck in a rut with some rines. If i go and spit on someone, are they inflicted with pain? Although in a human, no. Seems more logical if a gorges spit slows down an enemy or alters their movement in some form.
<u>Reduction in OC resource cost/limit</u>
Gorges aren't front line Kharaa, they rely on buildings to do their dirty work. As I've found whilst playing NS, OC's COST TOO MUCH RES. Sure, when you have 100res constant, it doesn't matter, but when your just starting off a new game res is life or death. A reduction in OC resource costs would <b>drasticl</b>y fix the problem, all that would need to be changed in conjunction to this is the max hp values of the OC's. Quantity over quality. I've felt too much pain seeing noob Gorges place OC's in the hive when that res could be used to getting MC's or RT's.
<u>healing buff that increases max healed unit's HP</u>
ALL HAIL TF2. Gorges could use a healing buff like that of the Medic from TF2. Now, I'm not saying that it should be totally copied.. but it's a very good concept and actually encourages people to heal and support each other. Give it a somewhat small range and its set.
That idea for gorges giving area effects sounded good too.. it would immensely help having a gorge around at all times for faster energy regen or damage increase.
Edit: <u>Resource leech</u>
Just thinking of it, a big problem faced as a gorge is that your only income of resources is mainly from OC kills and normal res ticks. What could be implemented is a form of leech that effects the Gorges team mates so that when they kill things the gorge gets resources too.. kinda like inspiration for the Gorge. Could help in the long-run as the income of res is rather slow at the start of a game. Commanders get res from their marines killing aliens.. why not have the Gorgies get res from their fighters? Would have to be effected by the number of gorges though
ie. 1 gorge = 80% leech, 2 gorge = 60% leech, etc.
6 a gorge help button - the gorge could get a button which either allows it to send a warning message to all other team members telling tehm they need help, or it could teleport one alien to assist him. - this may be open to exploitation. Since the gorge is probably the least mobile alien class, its ability to teleport one alien to it would not be to open to abuse if it cost high energy and could only summon a skulk or lerk type alien.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
@ 2 I don't think this idea would really promote teamwork. The idea is encourage players to defend the gorges, this would just make them harder to kill
@ 6 gorge help button is a great idea. Teleport a maybe.
More likely it would be the gorge builds a spawn chamber/drops spawn eggs to encourage players to be where he is.
<!--quoteo(post=1658678:date=Oct 31 2007, 12:38 PM:name=naggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naggy @ Oct 31 2007, 12:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1658678"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><u>More mobility</u>
<u>Reduction in OC resource cost/limit</u>
<u>healing buff that increases max healed unit's HP</u>
Edit: <u>Resource leech</u><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
While the gorge may have a more battle ready attitude in NS2 this topic is more about encouraging players to work together to protect gorges. These changes would just make the gorge more autonomous.
<!--quoteo(post=1658678:date=Oct 31 2007, 12:38 PM:name=naggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naggy @ Oct 31 2007, 12:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1658678"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><u>Give Spit a snare effect</u><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think this is a reasonable idea since it would give gorges a chance to slow down a single marine while waiting for help to arrive. The effect should slow the marine but not blind him, bind him, or remove his weapon IMO. Maybe it could be a secondary fire that uses more adrenaline.
Examples:
A node is under attack - hive issues orders to all lifeforms to defend that node.
Skulk is spending too much time doing nothing - hive reminds the skulk to kill marine towers.
Player went gorge - Hive counts the number of capped alien RTs on the map and calculates that to the amount of players on the team, if the team needs more RTs the hive will point the player to the nearest RT. If no additional RTs are needed but not all chambers are dropped, the hive will tell the player to drop the chambers in a safe place.
Player has 30 res, isn't a lifeform and no hive is being built - Hive tells the player that a hive needs to be built.
how much more effective woudl a fade B if he could pick up a single marine and carry him to my OC's he doesnt have to fly in swipe swipe, swipe, one down, hum stay in for another or fly out? just flys in grabs a guy and carrys him out kicking and screaming.
onos devour and regurgitate, sweet damage a marine to near death spit him out into OC's for the gorge.
these things would help but a more in game intuative system would be best, instead of giving the blade running fade 3 res per kill, give him 2 res and one res too the gorge with in range,
or everytime the fades healed by the gorge for a excessive amount give the gorge a one or two res tip. useing a gorges DC's one res, useing a hive to heal, 1 res gets alicated to gorges, it woudlnt help any one trying ot leech res, as they would in turn need to spend ten res for gorge and be limited as a gorge until lthey can leech at least 11 res before they are makeing a proffit, but that permer gorge and gorge regulars, they now are getting that extra bang for there buck.
batle feild 2142 engineers had this they would get a repair point if htey did a fair amount of healing like 2/3 worth, as a a little bit of healing gave them nothing but if your doing your job healing and fades doing his job, one res to top you up and dave you 30 seconds of blinking to regen should make everyone happy.
futher ability like dragging rines to OC's or spiting them out in front of them or for the gorge to play with is a great way to share the love.
not bad domming a intuative hive randomly giveing order set with in her constraints would be a good idea, not too much codeing just have her proc and go thru a list, sort of like how the easter eggs are now but more so
Examples:
A node is under attack - hive issues orders to all lifeforms to defend that node.
Skulk is spending too much time doing nothing - hive reminds the skulk to kill marine towers.
Player went gorge - Hive counts the number of capped alien RTs on the map and calculates that to the amount of players on the team, if the team needs more RTs the hive will point the player to the nearest RT. If no additional RTs are needed but not all chambers are dropped, the hive will tell the player to drop the chambers in a safe place.
Player has 30 res, isn't a lifeform and no hive is being built - Hive tells the player that a hive needs to be built.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That would be a cool way to implement the help. You could do something similar for marines too.
4 a better communications on the alien team - some sort of interface for sorting out a plan or dispensing orders<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those are the basic differences between marines and aliens that I wouldn't start to change too fast. On aliens gorges can work as a team and alien buildings as living organisms also grow themself. Other aliens being able to build too is a bit too much. Only thing that could be changed there is the speed that alien buildings grow up because it's cool that they do so and heal themself from some minor attacks but if you drop a chamber it usually is needed asap and if you just leave the chamber to grow itself you can die few times, come back and it still ain't finished.
An interface is also more of a marine thing because aliens work individually, but as a team. Some of those differences you want to keep.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->5 education of players - a tutorial in basic team tactics should be shipped with the game so players no how to work together, and team play is envouraged<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Basicly a small ingame training course wouldn't be to bad when it would have the point of: "You didn't protect that, so now you're alive, but your team is ######ed, so you're ######ed..." Also something that would make them learn the res use. "Oh you were saving for an Onos? Well guess what. Here comes a marine with hmg to bust your skulk ass"
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->6 a gorge help button - the gorge could get a button which either allows it to send a warning message to all other team members telling tehm they need help, or it could teleport one alien to assist him. - this may be open to exploitation. Since the gorge is probably the least mobile alien class, its ability to teleport one alien to it would not be to open to abuse if it cost high energy and could only summon a skulk or lerk type alien.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Messing with other players game is always a bad idea. Even some of those bad beacons made by comm might make some people piss off because they were just about to ninja the hive or something. You biting a RT down as a skulk and *ZUUM* whatta? *BANG* *SPLAT* Oh...
The thing you could do is have a panic button for gorges that would show with big neon letters that they're really in trouble. Dunno how much that would be abused/spammed tho <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1658678:date=Oct 31 2007, 04:38 PM:name=naggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naggy @ Oct 31 2007, 04:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1658678"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Gorges need a biiig makeover.
Some stuff from the top of my head includes..
<u>More mobility</u>
Gorges suffer greatly from their lack of ability to climb walls and/or get around quickly. They might be a builder class not suited for combat, but numerous times while playing NS I've succumbed to the retardedness of falling out of a vent or off a ledge and not being able to get back into it and then having my brains blown out by a passing marine. Yes, this might sound like the players fault, but tbh gorges should have some form of wall climbing ability. Atm i can think of two options:
a) wallwalk like a skulk, and
b) an official gorge webhook (like as seen on many custom servers)
Even though gorges aren't meant to get around that quickly (the name Gorge doesn't help) they should have some form of escape besides MC or bhop leetness (which is prly gone in NS2). Wallwalk would help a gorge out alot, but it would have to be dumbed down version of skulk wallwalk. A gorgehook would help IMMENSELY (i know people here arent fans of custom servers and/or mods, but wth this is just pure genius.) Not only do gorgehook/grapplehooks help the gorge get around but its somewhat a form of defense as well, as the gorge can retreat into a nearby vent or overhead some OC's. The web hook would have to be <b>slow</b> and possibly break if the gorge is hit while trying to hook onto something.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think that immobility is there for a reason and with celerity you can actually move a bit. Gorge doesn't hang from the cealing because it shouldn't have to. That's the assault alien lifeform's job while protecting the gorge.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><u>Give Spit a snare effect</u>
Gorge's spit ability is crap. Period. I know Gorges aren't attack units, but wth. Spit is useless. Replace it with some kind of faster traveling spread-shot snare (think shotgun but extremely dumbed down) or put the snare ontop of the damage it already inflicts. This way the gorge can effectively snare more than one person if stuck in a rut with some rines. If i go and spit on someone, are they inflicted with pain? Although in a human, no. Seems more logical if a gorges spit slows down an enemy or alters their movement in some form.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This I like because it gives some sort of chance to get away or buys the gorge a bit more time till the backup comes.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><u>Reduction in OC resource cost/limit</u>
Gorges aren't front line Kharaa, they rely on buildings to do their dirty work. As I've found whilst playing NS, OC's COST TOO MUCH RES. Sure, when you have 100res constant, it doesn't matter, but when your just starting off a new game res is life or death. A reduction in OC resource costs would <b>drasticly</b> fix the problem, all that would need to be changed in conjunction to this is the max hp values of the OC's. Quantity over quality. I've felt too much pain seeing noob Gorges place OC's in the hive when that res could be used to getting MC's or RT's.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Gotta agree that it's lovely seeing people trying "what this button does?" while others are yelling him not to make first OCs to the hive and then DCs as first chambers to ofc keep the OCs alive <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> Taking OC cost down still wouldn't be good because OC's ain't suppose to do the killing but to be there for support and maybe a small slowdown for those marines to come to some areas. They cost so much because even in small numbers they make some lone marines to think twice which route he should take and that way aliens don't have to pay so much tension to that route anymore. Also having even 2 OCs and a gorge is quite good opponent to a marine while just the gorge will propably get slain pretty fast.
<!--quoteo(post=1658727:date=Oct 31 2007, 09:20 PM:name=Domining)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Domining @ Oct 31 2007, 09:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1658727"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think what could save NS2 from the same fate is if you gently 'nudge' the aliens in the right direction. Have the hive periodically issue commands to aliens with cl_autohelp set to 1
Examples:
A node is under attack - hive issues orders to all lifeforms to defend that node.
Skulk is spending too much time doing nothing - hive reminds the skulk to kill marine towers.
Player went gorge - Hive counts the number of capped alien RTs on the map and calculates that to the amount of players on the team, if the team needs more RTs the hive will point the player to the nearest RT. If no additional RTs are needed but not all chambers are dropped, the hive will tell the player to drop the chambers in a safe place.
Player has 30 res, isn't a lifeform and no hive is being built - Hive tells the player that a hive needs to be built.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Would work if someone could just smack it into some players fat skulls how small sacrifice from one player at the start helps the overall of the whole team.
I just loved one game a bit ago where from a 12 man team only 2 went gorge at start and dropped RT. After I had yelled the aliens to use their res for some time they started to build some chambers and RTs. Only bad thing was that marines already had over half of the map and they were walking into the hive. When the marines were finishing building the TF next to the hive about 6 people still had over 50 res and no one using it. Damn if I wasn't proud of that team <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
While reading these tho it came to mind that Gorges could maybe have a link gun kind of ability to use either to shoot it on fellow alien on small range for him to get attack bonus or maybe several gorges to make the front one to make some serios damage. That would make the Gorges less vulnerable and also suggest them to work as a team.
I know an interface for dispensing orders is more of a marine team. But an interface doesnt need to be a visual map or what ever. It could be a communication travel through the hive. The Hive could be given an AI. Players could submit information to this hive AI, like lets attack (point on map) and after a few players submit this the hive could send an order in the form of a text popup and hive voice over to every player. At the start of a map the hive could ask every player what chamber they want first, then the most popular vote could be passed on the gorge. this system would still be superseeded by voice communication but it could help on servers where players dont talk too much. The AI aspect in the hive could monitor the map, structures / where players are killing/dieing/ where more res is coming from, where rine res towers are known to be, and then send text and hive voice comands to aliens telling them what they could do.
This AI may not be feasable, could someone with more programming knowledge of these things please comment. I spose it could be seen as an AI version of the comm, which may be abit lame, but i think this ideas at least worth debating. If the AI was good and it assessed actions and interacted with players well it cud be uber cool, aslong as it didnot remove key deicsions from players, it should just channel the teh aliens in the right direction and keep the team focused
I love the gorge wall walking idea (I CAME UP WITH IT YEARS AGO =P) but i think the gorge should be much slower at it and would kind of stick to it also would it be possible to plant chambers facing downwards on the roof? that would really add to the atmosphere of infestation and give the marines a 2nd layer of defense to push through =P
i dont like the idea of aliens being forced to do something, i always felt that the aliens should have the general feeling as to them moving like a horde upon the enemy(still working together) where as the marines require finesse and coordination. I do however like the idea of gorges acting like swiss army knifes. I think the idea of gorges giving out auras kinda cool. The gorge could specialize(for a small resource hit?) into a certain area like healing, cloaking or movement but the aura would require 3 chambers of each type up at a time and only one aura per gorge could be up at a time.
The aura thing has been suggested before in a different manner. People wanted the gorges to be able to carry a chamber on their backs.
I don't know about the aura thing, but I think the gorge should have something more to do with their time, so that being a perma-gorge can be an actual option in the game without having to spend a lot of time staring at a wall waiting for the res ticker, because I think always having a gorge is a vital part of a good alien team.