4th level for upgrade chamber trade-off

GaussWaffleGaussWaffle Join Date: 2008-02-22 Member: 63708Members
edited March 2009 in Ideas and Suggestions
Here's an idea-

Your second hive is coming up in about 30 seconds, and a little alien message/vote comes up.

1. 3 hives, 3 upgrade levels, 3 chambers
2. 3 hives, 4 upgrade levels, 2 chambers

The first option implies that you follow the typical route. Your second hive goes up and you can drop a second chamber, and only get three upgrade levels out of it.

The second option is the point of this thread. If you choose the second option (whether to gain a short-term distinct advantage or you're getting pushed to either hives and need immediate resistance efforts), you can only drop 2 upgrade chamber types regardless of 2-3 hives. BUT you get up to a lvl 4 upgrade of that chamber type. You also receive an extra upgrade in the existing chamber, as well.

At first glance (to me), this seems like an interesting trade-off. a level 4 focus/celerity fade would be insane fun. (think about one swiping lvl 1 armor rines). a lvl 4 redemp/celerity onos would be VERY hard to kill. But you'd never have the other upgrade chamber the rest of the game, even if your second hives was destroyed and you got it back up with a "blank" for an upgrade chamber type.

This brings about another question: What about a skill like silence, one that "maxs" out at lvl 3? This is where it gets fun..
My personal ideas for lvl 4 "max" upgrades are the following, as well as some tweaks to fairly underused upgrades:

Silence: You're obviously silenced, but now you gain an ability. Your weapons two gets another weapon, I'll call it "Sound Point". You simply point your cursor at any wall in your field of vision, and <i></i>at that point<i></i> a random sound of your creature jumping/running/chuckling is made there. The possible uses of this new mechanic are awesome, to say the least.

Cloak: Since just further decreasing cloak time seems a little tacky, I'm adding a little extra oomph to this critter. Every aliens plight is motion tracking. It's only true counter is to walk everywhere to remain unseen, and even then a little strafe action by habit will lose any strategy you put into sneaking up on someone. With lvl 4 cloak, you gain the ability to <i></i>run<i></i> as well as bhop without being seen on the motion tracking system as long as you're cloaked to some degree (i.e. your blue bar is present with any amount)

Scent of Fear: All Marines become immediately present on your screen, as if it were true motion tracking for the aliens.

All other skills would be heightened versions of the pervious to a similar ratio as before (lvl 4 celerity = 1.33 x faster alien, lvl 4 carapace = 283 armor fade, etc.)

Any thoughts?

Comments

  • StarClawsStarClaws Join Date: 2002-11-26 Member: 9974Members
    edited March 2009
    Not a bad idea but the alien game mechanics are being restructured quite a bit and we don't know much about it yet. There could be many more chambers... There's an alien commander and he could make the call for the team without the vote. He may have to research level1/2/3 carapace and such for us. We don't know much yet in this department is what I am trying to say.

    This is also on a new engine... Cutting down on bunny hopping and other engine exploits... And allowing for new advancements in better code for things like the problem with motion tracking detection. Scent of Fear is kind of an underplayed upgrade... I sure hope something in terms of this upgrade(If it is kept) gets a better increase...

    <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Silence: You're obviously silenced, but now you gain an ability. Your weapons two gets another weapon, I'll call it "Sound Point". You simply point your cursor at any wall in your field of vision, and at that point a random sound of your creature jumping/running/chuckling is made there. The possible uses of this new mechanic are awesome, to say the least.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Kind of like that idea... Think about that 1 devs... Since semi-experienced players use sound soooo much... It could be a good counter to that.

    I sure hope NS2 stays in open beta stage (But we still pay for it) for quite some time to let us feel it out and smooth out the game. (A year or more is what I am saying) Kind of like NS1 did really... But NS2 will be more complete and won't have as much rough edges... But there will still be balance issues and other bugs/glitches we test on new maps that they will release (I hope there's more than just 5 maps... I'd like to see over 30 maps... Regardless there will always be that 'de_dust' or 'ns_eclipse' map... but a better selection can help)
  • GaussWaffleGaussWaffle Join Date: 2008-02-22 Member: 63708Members
    edited March 2009
    <!--quoteo(post=1702535:date=Mar 11 2009, 05:37 PM:name=StarClaws)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(StarClaws @ Mar 11 2009, 05:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1702535"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not a bad idea but the alien game mechanics are being restructured quite a bit and we don't know much about it yet. There could be many more chambers... There's an alien commander and he could make the call for the team without the vote. He may have to research level1/2/3 carapace and such for us. We don't know much yet in this department is what I am trying to say.

    This is also on a new engine... Cutting down on bunny hopping and other engine exploits... And allowing for new advancements in better code for things like the problem with motion tracking detection. Scent of Fear is kind of an underplayed upgrade... I sure hope something in terms of this upgrade(If it is kept) gets a better increase...
    Kind of like that idea... Think about that 1 devs... Since semi-experienced players use sound soooo much... It could be a good counter to that.

    I sure hope NS2 stays in open beta stage (But we still pay for it) for quite some time to let us feel it out and smooth out the game. (A year or more is what I am saying) Kind of like NS1 did really... But NS2 will be more complete and won't have as much rough edges... But there will still be balance issues and other bugs/glitches we test on new maps that they will release (I hope there's more than just 5 maps... I'd like to see over 30 maps... Regardless there will always be that 'de_dust' or 'ns_eclipse' map... but a better selection can help)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    All good points brought up. As you say, we can only have a limited view as to what they're doing with the game right now. I'm really just more or less putting ideas out there so they'll at least pass it through there brains for a couple seconds ;p

    And just for a little clarification, this "Ventriloquism" would indeed cost energy, somewhere around the range of about a 1/2 a parasite's worth, with about the same rate of fire as a parasite.

    And ya, I really liked the silence mechanic too, made me giddy thinking about the possibilities
  • locallyunscenelocallyunscene Feeder of Trolls Join Date: 2002-12-25 Member: 11528Members, Constellation
    I would give silence the MT invisibility and give lvl 4 cloak a decoy. I find the most useful part about silence is being able to attack and from a good position before the marine knows you're there. Making any noise, even a distracting one, defeats this purpose. Interesting tradeoff overall.
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