Aliens and niches
Zuriki
Join Date: 2010-11-20 Member: 75105Members
Join Date: 2010-11-20 Member: 75105Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Bit of a rant, bit of a question and bit of speculation...</div>I feel like the the aliens all have pretty poorly defined niches.
Skulks are the early-game muscle but late game cannon-fodder.
Lerk is early-game AOD and defender, late game cannon-fodder.
Gorge is early-game assistant defender, AOD (to some effect), medic, late game super-weapon (bilebomb; when used effectively).
Fade is "early-game" assassin and muscle, late game pest (not really cannon-fodder because of their durability).
Onos is early-game nothing and end-game super-weapon which will only serve to replace the Gorge's end-game.
So as you can see, the entire alien team is nullified over time.
Skulks and lerks become to weak to do anything other than soak up bullets defending Gorges.
Fades, whilst they fair better than most, still mostly serve to harass Marines and soak up bullets for Gorges.
Gorge's actually fair the best so far, as they become more useful in the end-game by killing off the Marine base and their heal ability serves to keep around their Fade underlings for more bullet soaking.
Onos, when introduced, will only serve to nullify the Gorge; it's super structure destroying ability means the bilebomb pales in comparison. However, the Gorge will still have purpose -- imagine a single Onos supported by a team of 4 Gorges, each Gorge healing the Onos, itself and the other Gorges.
Excuse the writing style, but it was intended to read much like bullet points, only more flowing.
Skulks are the early-game muscle but late game cannon-fodder.
Lerk is early-game AOD and defender, late game cannon-fodder.
Gorge is early-game assistant defender, AOD (to some effect), medic, late game super-weapon (bilebomb; when used effectively).
Fade is "early-game" assassin and muscle, late game pest (not really cannon-fodder because of their durability).
Onos is early-game nothing and end-game super-weapon which will only serve to replace the Gorge's end-game.
So as you can see, the entire alien team is nullified over time.
Skulks and lerks become to weak to do anything other than soak up bullets defending Gorges.
Fades, whilst they fair better than most, still mostly serve to harass Marines and soak up bullets for Gorges.
Gorge's actually fair the best so far, as they become more useful in the end-game by killing off the Marine base and their heal ability serves to keep around their Fade underlings for more bullet soaking.
Onos, when introduced, will only serve to nullify the Gorge; it's super structure destroying ability means the bilebomb pales in comparison. However, the Gorge will still have purpose -- imagine a single Onos supported by a team of 4 Gorges, each Gorge healing the Onos, itself and the other Gorges.
Excuse the writing style, but it was intended to read much like bullet points, only more flowing.
Comments
The short version
- Skulk is not agile enough to run away from rt defender
- Resourcetower spots are built (just taking summit into the calculations) favoring marines not allowing single alien to escape
- Resource meaningfulness has decreased tremendously
- Skulks do not scale with the hives aswell anymore (Leap was huge with proper movement atm its way too predictable) no 3rd hive ability.
- Neither side are not forced to do anything both can just spam structures.
Slapping together gimped skulk like creature is not obviously going to bring back excellent depth and gameplay. Lack of developers insight imo :/
What was it that allowed the marines to be aggressive in the early game?
Map control was big also. Aliens were defensive for the hive and their second hive location (which is usually where the first and second RTs went around or between). Alien hives had a random chance to spawn at 3 locations which made starts HUGE. "Safe" nodes were scarce and a lot of time was put into guarding nodes. Not storming marine start to feed them res.
Also alien side (ranked 6v6 matches) people would call out rolls to play. 1 would save for fade, 1 would save for hive, 2 would drop an RT (one would save for fade after that the other would remain gorge and drop the last chamber "movement, sensory, or defense"), 1 would save for chambers (2), and 1 lerk (and with kills a fade later on if fade one went down). Res was THAT planned out. (Been awhile since i played but i think that was the formula)
Oh how i miss NS 1.
Map control was big also. Aliens were defensive for the hive and their second hive location (which is usually where the first and second RTs went around or between). Alien hives had a random chance to spawn at 3 locations which made starts HUGE. "Safe" nodes were scarce and a lot of time was put into guarding nodes. Not storming marine start to feed them res.
Also alien side (ranked 6v6 matches) people would call out rolls to play. 1 would save for fade, 1 would save for hive, 2 would drop an RT (one would save for fade after that the other would remain gorge and drop the last chamber "movement, sensory, or defense"), 1 would save for chambers (2), and 1 lerk (and with kills a fade later on if fade one went down). Res was THAT planned out. (Been awhile since i played but i think that was the formula)
Oh how i miss NS 1.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good times indeed!
What was it that allowed the marines to be aggressive in the early game?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In NS1 resource towers were far more important than in NS2.
Killing one actually made a difference. Losing your starting RTs was a huge setback.
What was it that allowed the marines to be aggressive in the early game?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The game was balanced so that if both marines and aliens had the same/similar amount of resourcetowers, aliens would have the advantange due seer strength of the lifeforms. NS1 also had a distress beacon which allowed every marine dead or alive teleport to marine start at the cost of 15 resources, trade offs such as alien resource towers / whole marine base except CC(too many hitpoints) happened fairly often and they did not even necessery put marines into worse position since killing resource towers significantly reduced time when aliens get their new hive and fade. Distress beacon required observatory, and observatory required armory so as long as you had you armory up you could drop and observatory to the field and beacon back and "start again" by capping/defending resnodes.
Another great feature of NS1 that is not in NS2 was that you could adapt to such situation for example sacrificing your designed hive skulk and drop two nodes to compensate for the loss inexchange for later hive, or wait for rt/fade (player making resource tower and fading after/around second hive) to recap if he had good RFK gain (another feature that brings great depth to the game unlike NS2 model).
The power shifting on both sides made it very interesting and unique experience everytime, very crude way of putting would be that vanilla marines > skulks (first 1.30-2.30min) ||| lerk > vanilla marines 2.30min -> 5-7min ||| sg marine > lerk (anytime of the game in exchange for resources/gain) ||| fade > sg marine 7min ||| 2nd hive > sgs and so on.
Extremely crude way of expressing it but I hope you can imagine how refressing the game was since the balance or more like advantage shifted around and things like sg or lerk dying had a huge effect on how to game flowed forward and the decisions ingame had a real meaning.
OTOH, high-level aliens like the fade and onos had to be durable because they represented a HUGE investment.
The NS2 tres/pres system means that the game should be possible to scale for games in the 6-16 team size range (not saying its going to be EASY ... just possible).
However, while the resource system has changed fundamentally, the tech tree and cost structure is still basically modeled on NS1.
I think this is a temporary thing though; until all the designed for contents are in, UWE is probably content to have a "playable" resource system just to get enough playtime on the game to get feedback on bugs, performance (and design issues like this).
So think of the current tech tree/economy as a crude scaffold there just to allow the beautiful arch of the final NS2 version to be built. Hey, almost poetry! :-)
Speaking of which, gorge should be able to put out flames, no? After all it <i>sprays</i> healing. Just a thought.
Speaking of which, gorge should be able to put out flames, no? After all it <i>sprays</i> healing. Just a thought.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
they already can do that!! And I think the FT should not reduce energy regeneration, but make all abilities cost twice as much energy instead
I think the problem in ns2 is not only the resource system (its definitely not ok now). It's mainly the map layout of summit. There could be a few more vents, as they are a crucial element of the game play. If you play on a map which is just 1 big room, skulks vs. marines, guess who would win? then you adjust the balance, make also a new map with lots of vents and hideouts, suddenly skulks would win each round. The resource model needs some tweaking, but I think the skulks are more or less fine now. You should keep in mind that you play basically without upgrades now, since they are not implemented (talking about carapace and all the other stuff). later, even hive 1 skulks, will become more dangerous if you decide to spend a few p.res.
Instead of conserving currect energy fade would have leave the battle BEFORE even if he was not on flames because catching flames would get him killed.
This would be extremely stupid.
if your enemies only have shotguns, you can use blink more often since you have the energy. and against a group with only FT's, you dont need blink since the burst damage would not be high enough to get you killed (and they have limited range, so you can retreat with your mini blink).
what else is the role of the FT than deflecting / crippling alien attacks?
I think the problem in ns2 is not only the resource system (its definitely not ok now). It's mainly the map layout of summit. There could be a few more vents, as they are a crucial element of the game play. If you play on a map which is just 1 big room, skulks vs. marines, guess who would win? then you adjust the balance, make also a new map with lots of vents and hideouts, suddenly skulks would win each round. The resource model needs some tweaking, but I think the skulks are more or less fine now. You should keep in mind that you play basically without upgrades now, since they are not implemented (talking about carapace and all the other stuff). later, even hive 1 skulks, will become more dangerous if you decide to spend a few p.res.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If FT doubles the energy cost of abilities, I think there may be a problem, if aliens have abilities that cost more than 50 energy, as they will become unusable. Or maybe that can be used as a balancing mechanism. I only played a bit with the FT in your Prototype Mod, but the damage alone seems deadly enough! :D
I agree difference in map design can have heavy impact on the balance(eg shortage of vents on Summit). NS2 is still growing every week, and this week is looking to be quite exciting!
there is no burst damage. if you "heat up" your target, the dps become deadly :)