Marine Commander Abilities
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Nerdish by NatureGermany Join Date: 2003-08-07 Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
Nerdish by NatureGermany Join Date: 2003-08-07 Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
<!--quoteo(post=1696725:date=Dec 25 2008, 05:49 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bacillus @ Dec 25 2008, 05:49 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1696725"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As for the spam, it at least needs to be replaced with something equally challenging. I kinda agree that the medspam is a little flawed for the instant fun factor of the aliens, but I guess we'll have to see how the devs have got this planned.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This quote made me think what else the marine commander should be able to do to make this class more challenging and fun to play.
<i>The abilities shouldn't be that strong or game deciding, but are supposed to support the marines like medpack, ammo and catalyst does, because otherwise it could just become frustrating for aliens, if they are killed by an "invisible power", especially considering higher lifeforms.</i>
Since I'm only pubcommanding occasionally and rather slow <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />, I'm very interested in other ppl's idea and especially from those with experience in competitive commanding, which apparently need/like more commander skills like constant medding (at least according to Bac <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink-fix.gif" /> ).
I think it basicly should work like this:
-The commander has either another building for those skills or can research/upgrade them at the arms lab or observatory.
-Aside from scan the new abilities have to be researched first. Ater that they use energy like scan (20 for example), which slowly regenerates and has opposed to scan a cap at 20 in order to avoid spamming or overusing the ability.
-One or two more upgrades could be available for each ability to increase the regeneration rate of the energy.
-The 20 energy units can be tweaked for balance reasons and of course the res costs for the upgrades have to be worth it.
-Too many abilities or upgrades in general might be overpowering though, if all abilities are used at once, so upgrades might be too much. The commander doesn't have the res for all the skills at start anyway, so you have to choose between skills, upgrades, whatever..
-Maybe a cooldown between different abilities would also help to prevent the commander from instantly throwing all abilities at one alien rush.
Here are some ideas, names and numbers are open for debate, of course.
-Electric Bolt:
Does a one time area damage with a falloff, which either just deals a little damage or works similar to static (xmenu), thus reduces armor and health but only to a certain min. limit.
It also does hurt marines. The commander can use it during an alien rush or simply to attack an alien building in order to draw the alien team's attention to that structure or to help fieldmarines destroying it a little quicker.
-Nanite Flush:
Also area effect with falloff.
Acts like welding marine's armor or structures.
Gives the marines a one time break from welding and thus the opportunity to attack faster after reloading.
When repairing structures a bit, it might give those miliseconds to recapture a pg or save the AA.
-Paralyse:
Effects a rather small area, no falloff, does also effect marines
Reduces speed by 50% in a split second.
Aliens can immediatly re-accelerate to retreat or finish the attack, but it gives the field marines a little more time to hit.
-Catalyst:
Reworked catalyst pack.
The commander can assign the abilitly to one ore multiple marines, which drains the energy until the effect wears off and the marines are deselected by the ability.
Multiple marines drain more energy, of course
Might be a total bs idea though <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> ..because it probably just adds more effort to achieve the current catalyst pack effect.
-Retreat:
Works like beacon, but only for a single marine the commander selected.
Can help to retrieve a marine and especially the used equiment.
Shouldn't be available very early to leave a chance to an early alien baserush in case marines are all out pressuring/capping. Or make it researchable at the obs, but start with 0 energy.
What do you think? What are your ideas?
This quote made me think what else the marine commander should be able to do to make this class more challenging and fun to play.
<i>The abilities shouldn't be that strong or game deciding, but are supposed to support the marines like medpack, ammo and catalyst does, because otherwise it could just become frustrating for aliens, if they are killed by an "invisible power", especially considering higher lifeforms.</i>
Since I'm only pubcommanding occasionally and rather slow <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />, I'm very interested in other ppl's idea and especially from those with experience in competitive commanding, which apparently need/like more commander skills like constant medding (at least according to Bac <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink-fix.gif" /> ).
I think it basicly should work like this:
-The commander has either another building for those skills or can research/upgrade them at the arms lab or observatory.
-Aside from scan the new abilities have to be researched first. Ater that they use energy like scan (20 for example), which slowly regenerates and has opposed to scan a cap at 20 in order to avoid spamming or overusing the ability.
-One or two more upgrades could be available for each ability to increase the regeneration rate of the energy.
-The 20 energy units can be tweaked for balance reasons and of course the res costs for the upgrades have to be worth it.
-Too many abilities or upgrades in general might be overpowering though, if all abilities are used at once, so upgrades might be too much. The commander doesn't have the res for all the skills at start anyway, so you have to choose between skills, upgrades, whatever..
-Maybe a cooldown between different abilities would also help to prevent the commander from instantly throwing all abilities at one alien rush.
Here are some ideas, names and numbers are open for debate, of course.
-Electric Bolt:
Does a one time area damage with a falloff, which either just deals a little damage or works similar to static (xmenu), thus reduces armor and health but only to a certain min. limit.
It also does hurt marines. The commander can use it during an alien rush or simply to attack an alien building in order to draw the alien team's attention to that structure or to help fieldmarines destroying it a little quicker.
-Nanite Flush:
Also area effect with falloff.
Acts like welding marine's armor or structures.
Gives the marines a one time break from welding and thus the opportunity to attack faster after reloading.
When repairing structures a bit, it might give those miliseconds to recapture a pg or save the AA.
-Paralyse:
Effects a rather small area, no falloff, does also effect marines
Reduces speed by 50% in a split second.
Aliens can immediatly re-accelerate to retreat or finish the attack, but it gives the field marines a little more time to hit.
-Catalyst:
Reworked catalyst pack.
The commander can assign the abilitly to one ore multiple marines, which drains the energy until the effect wears off and the marines are deselected by the ability.
Multiple marines drain more energy, of course
Might be a total bs idea though <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> ..because it probably just adds more effort to achieve the current catalyst pack effect.
-Retreat:
Works like beacon, but only for a single marine the commander selected.
Can help to retrieve a marine and especially the used equiment.
Shouldn't be available very early to leave a chance to an early alien baserush in case marines are all out pressuring/capping. Or make it researchable at the obs, but start with 0 energy.
What do you think? What are your ideas?
Comments
Anything that involves co-operation between the marine and commander is great. A catpack push to a room is a simple example of that, but some more complex synergies might be interesting. I don't know how well those would work on public, but it would still be interesting to see some innovative opportunities for battle commanding instead of just controlling the medding and scan. Something that makes people think 'Whoa, great play there' instead of just solidly pressing onward to the victory with game control.
Of course there should be enough other things that the commander has to do beside waypointing his marines / aliens through and dropping medpacks and ammunition ... but I guess you should keep the marine commander more the supporter and the alien commander more as an attacker to avoid having two "exact" same commanders with different types of troops on the ground.