Make redemption an alien commander ability
master havoc
Join Date: 2010-09-26 Member: 74189Members
Join Date: 2010-09-26 Member: 74189Members
Its just an idea (probably 5 people in months past posted this as an idea too) that I thought I would throw out there. It would be nice if a dev saw this, but if not thats fine too. Although this is my first post I have been playing NS since before steam, and was in CAP clan near its extinction in NS. Now onto the idea...
Simply put, in my mind now that aliens actually get an overlooker that represents the bacterium taking to them, to me it makes more sense to put this as a commander ability. It could still work as the alien commander movement chaimber target ability too.
Pros
-Alien commander gets an ability that could determine the game.
-Redemption is no longer gambling with the gods of death to see if you can keep your lifeform. (it usually failed for me)
-Alien commander gets another reason to scan around the battlefield trying to help out.
-Aliens get a reason to go toe-to-toe with marines and not be ###### who wont encounter a marine for fear of death.
-This adds to the team play aspect and tactics for an alien push. For instance, an onos charges into marines, askes for commander to watch him and wait, gets teamates behind him to attack after he absorbs the initial blows. Charge up enough energy and late game make it 2 onos.
Cons
-Redemption is a really cheap and annoying ability. The higher life form basically goes suicide into a marine base and still lives. Before steam when most public game players went onos with redempt and went into a pack of marines constantly made for some easy victories.
-Aliens may use it as a dependancy instead of an extra tool.
-It is something to complain to the commander about (you didnt redeem me! I asked for it 5 times in chat, so why didnt you)
-not sure if this is pro or con, but with some misunderstanding a commander can redempt an alien who was going to do some damage to the marines. Or even worse, just accidently hitting it to waste the aliens time and the commanders's energy.
-again not sure pro or con, but: hard to aim (clicking the moving alien), hard to time, and very situational.
Balancing
- The price of a second life should not be taken lightly. It either has stupidly high energy cost in comparison to everything else, or maybe costs some resources also (10% of life form cost).
- It needs a condition. 3 second time delay, life form got a kill previously, life form was on creep at the most 30 seconds ago, alien needs to hold a certain upgrade, etc. Just something so life isnt all sunshine.
-Who said they had to redeem to the hive? how about randomly on the creep, some place it will take time to get back to. Or the creep right next to the front lines :)
I bet I could get deeper into all 3 fields but I said enough for a proposal. Tell me what you think.
Simply put, in my mind now that aliens actually get an overlooker that represents the bacterium taking to them, to me it makes more sense to put this as a commander ability. It could still work as the alien commander movement chaimber target ability too.
Pros
-Alien commander gets an ability that could determine the game.
-Redemption is no longer gambling with the gods of death to see if you can keep your lifeform. (it usually failed for me)
-Alien commander gets another reason to scan around the battlefield trying to help out.
-Aliens get a reason to go toe-to-toe with marines and not be ###### who wont encounter a marine for fear of death.
-This adds to the team play aspect and tactics for an alien push. For instance, an onos charges into marines, askes for commander to watch him and wait, gets teamates behind him to attack after he absorbs the initial blows. Charge up enough energy and late game make it 2 onos.
Cons
-Redemption is a really cheap and annoying ability. The higher life form basically goes suicide into a marine base and still lives. Before steam when most public game players went onos with redempt and went into a pack of marines constantly made for some easy victories.
-Aliens may use it as a dependancy instead of an extra tool.
-It is something to complain to the commander about (you didnt redeem me! I asked for it 5 times in chat, so why didnt you)
-not sure if this is pro or con, but with some misunderstanding a commander can redempt an alien who was going to do some damage to the marines. Or even worse, just accidently hitting it to waste the aliens time and the commanders's energy.
-again not sure pro or con, but: hard to aim (clicking the moving alien), hard to time, and very situational.
Balancing
- The price of a second life should not be taken lightly. It either has stupidly high energy cost in comparison to everything else, or maybe costs some resources also (10% of life form cost).
- It needs a condition. 3 second time delay, life form got a kill previously, life form was on creep at the most 30 seconds ago, alien needs to hold a certain upgrade, etc. Just something so life isnt all sunshine.
-Who said they had to redeem to the hive? how about randomly on the creep, some place it will take time to get back to. Or the creep right next to the front lines :)
I bet I could get deeper into all 3 fields but I said enough for a proposal. Tell me what you think.
Comments
The major problem is, as you pointed out, the problem of having a free second life if the Commander is paying attention. Especially for big expensive lifeforms. So, it better have one killer of a cost scaled by the cost of the lifeform.
Alternatively (or additively), it could work like Beacon. It will fire, but only after a delay period. So, you have to time it before they die, but not so soon they don't get anything done.
One major problem though is that people don't like to be jerked by the invisible hand. There have been times when I've beaconed players for a rush, and all they did was pout about being pulled away from their own awesome plans. So, just a cautionary tale. If this goes in, the commanders have to be really, really smart about it. Also, the possibilities for griefing are amazing, but so is being the Commander in general.
And I agree with spellman23.
A little delay and proper energy/resource cost should balance this out a bit.
The biggest issue would probably be the communication and teamwork regarding the timing so it is worth the damage done and still saves the lifeform.
Depending on the delay one could even notify the lifeform player in the HUD with a countdown to adress the communication issue.
<!--quoteo(post=1799933:date=Sep 27 2010, 03:55 AM:name=master havoc)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (master havoc @ Sep 27 2010, 03:55 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1799933"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Cons
-Redemption is a really cheap and annoying ability.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think redemption was ever a very good alien ability on any field of gameplay. It doesn't make much sense and I can't see that much variation or creative use for it. Making redemption interesting would require some additional details to it and I think it would still be controversial, annoying and problematic for the commander-alien relation.
Most of the positive effects listed can be achieved through almost any commander spell, so I'd rather just drop redemption and get a fresh clean start for alien commander abilities. No point in sticking to one of the worst functional abilities in the original game unless someone can see some exceptional potential in it.
I don't think redemption was ever a very good alien ability on any field of gameplay. It doesn't make much sense and I can't see that much variation or creative use for it. Making redemption interesting would require some additional details to it and I think it would still be controversial, annoying and problematic for the commander-alien relation.
Most of the positive effects listed can be achieved through almost any commander spell, so I'd rather just drop redemption and get a fresh clean start for alien commander abilities. No point in sticking to one of the worst functional abilities in the original game unless someone can see some exceptional potential in it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree, the movement chamber info hasn't really been released yet, we can only guess:
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/Shift" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/Shift</a>
I never liked redemption either. We still don't know what echo will be like. I'd much rather have a new ability instead of redemption.
Also, one last point. it seems like the upgrades won't actually be universal for all alien forms, they are form dependent. So maybe some aliens can be redeemed and others can't? maybe gorges get redeem because they are so much more tied into the hive?
This is what i base that statement off of (crag description):
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Commander-researched, player-purchased, defensive-oriented upgrades. For example, Carapace (late game armor) and Feed for Skulks (health for eating corpses) and Bacteria for Gorges (upgraded health spray).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not quite. I was only adding in a time delay a la Marine Beacon. If this was a mass recall of the entire Alien team.... that would be bad.
The goals are different. Redemption is to prevent death and save the huge investment of higher lifeforms. Beacon is to rally the entire Marine team for a decisive push or to help defend the base.
If the marine commander has any damage kind of ability, it'd come down to commanders having higher APM. Also to make it NOT only to come to that, these abilities which either kill or save aliens should have either or both a significiant resource cost (so commander would actuallly have to save a bunch of aliens to make it worth the res) or they'd need some kind of proximity to something like a structure or unit.
Maybe you could even increase the skill by adding a bit of latency to it and marines could see it happening. But it'd have to be very little. If Ns1 is even near same speed as NS2, the difference between surviving fade and dead fade happen in a split second.
Hm, spawn a new thread!