Shade Cloak
Kalabalana
Join Date: 2003-11-14 Member: 22859Members
Join Date: 2003-11-14 Member: 22859Members
<div class="IPBDescription">A conceptual rework of the Shade Cloak ability</div>Currently the shade cloak ability is overpowered. As of now, being cloaked at any hive location will last long enough to travel to marine start. This allows aliens to destroy structures without any realistic marine counter-measure to prevent it (Constant scanning is not a realistic option.). Also, from the alien commander's point of view, constant cloak requests in a busy game become tedious and time consuming to address. It's a needless hassle.
So, here's the idea, the commander controlled shade-cloak functionality now only applies to structures. The player side aspect is now handled by players via the use key on the shade. A shade can cloak up to 3 players at any given time, and each cloaking instance's conditions are independent of any other alien's (So a shade cloak always has the same affect, regardless of other users.).
As for this ability, I believe the cloak length should be reduced, and/or, you must remain within a certain distance of the shade (This will address the marine start rushing issue.). I'm thinking you'll get maybe 7 seconds of cloak once you leave the shade radius (Or just a total of 20 seconds length.), and maybe if you have the cloak ability evolved on your alien, you get additional benefits like more cloak time and/or the shade radius is increased for you. This will prevent the marine start rushes from an alien spawn, buff the currently underused cloak ability, and make tactical shades more of a presence in the game (Which they should be.).
Ideas.?
So, here's the idea, the commander controlled shade-cloak functionality now only applies to structures. The player side aspect is now handled by players via the use key on the shade. A shade can cloak up to 3 players at any given time, and each cloaking instance's conditions are independent of any other alien's (So a shade cloak always has the same affect, regardless of other users.).
As for this ability, I believe the cloak length should be reduced, and/or, you must remain within a certain distance of the shade (This will address the marine start rushing issue.). I'm thinking you'll get maybe 7 seconds of cloak once you leave the shade radius (Or just a total of 20 seconds length.), and maybe if you have the cloak ability evolved on your alien, you get additional benefits like more cloak time and/or the shade radius is increased for you. This will prevent the marine start rushes from an alien spawn, buff the currently underused cloak ability, and make tactical shades more of a presence in the game (Which they should be.).
Ideas.?
Comments
the cloak already take a long time to cloak a alien.
I never had a problem with cloaked aliens as i was marine.
Realy NEVER saw aliens win because of cloak or using it to much, so i have no idea what you mean with "overpowered cloak".
If something is overpowered, then its the grenade launcher ;-) because it has about 6 or 7 grenades, instead of 4 of the original, but its a beta and not final.
Yes, make it so an obs can reveal cloaked players, and really I think the Obs radius should be increased as well.
I know UWE wants cloak to be a bit different, it would be nice if the cloaked player was at 5%, 10% visible and not completely invis.
I spend a lot of time in both the hive and the CC and I'll say again.. in organized play. The shade rush is too powerful.
Having said that, I always thought that the obs should de-cloak aliens within range, but the way it plays right now, it seems to be OK. Except for a start of game rush, where the cloaked by Shade aliens are by-passing the entire marine team (minus commander), who are also rushing alien start, or at least pushing way forward, I don't think it is over powered.
Here's a couple ideas I have inline with cloaking;
1) Have the obs make some kind of warning sound or marine transmission when cloaked (and maybe include uncloaked) aliens are within range.
Maybe make the cloak detection a obs upgrade?
2) Make the shade start off with zero energy so the alien team can't bolt out of alien start the second the Shade is built and the alien com can activate it.
3) Maybe limit the Shade's cloaking ability to just within range of the Shade so that if an alien moves outside that range they will uncloak?
3) Make Shade's cloaking cost based on number of entities being cloaked starting at entity closest to Shade, then moving out in a circle to the next entities and once the Shade's energy is used up, no more entities can be cloaked. Also, it should take a lot more energy to cloak an Onos than to cloak a skulk.
(When I say "entity" I mean alien structures and aliens themselves.)
3b) alternately, I like Kalabalana's idea about letting the aliens "use" the Shade to cloak themselves. I think the energy should come from the Shade itself so the Shade's energy should be visible when looking at the Shade. Again, different energy levels to cloak different alien types.
I think the Obs,instead of decloaking the aliens completely or even mostly, it should make some sort of beeping sound when an alien is nearby. This way marines won't spam Obs everywhere they can(if it was decloak when near) but still make it useful.
The beeping shouldn't be annoying,nor stack when more Obs are around,and not stack when more aliens are around. The radius should be most of the room it's in as well.
I believe the beeping should increase in either intensity or pitch,or become more rapid, depending on how close the alien is to it. This means that Commanders can use it as a nice defense and know roughly where the aliens are.
Like if you put it near a/the doorway(s), youd be able to know when the alien or aliens are coming in,and know where to shoot ,roughly. Or if you put them near the IPs,youll know they are close to the IPs
I really don't think decloaking is much of an option,nor do I believe becoming more visible when away from a shade is one either,because aliens will just have alot more shades around just like Marines would do if Obs passively decloaks aliens.
Maybe shade could use hive energy (i think it does already?) when cloaking things,but not run out of energy base don the amount of entities.
And a pretty good solution.
this may be more appropriate for another thread but while we are talking cloak and obs.....
evolved cloak is damn near useless. a little speed boost would be nice maybe, but the big killer is how easy it is to break cloak. one little bump in the ground, god forbid you dare go near a staircase.
this is an even bigger problem is for the gorge. holding shift to maintain cloak leads to big problems when you hit a bump and the cloak breaks whilst still holding shift. far too many times i have been sneaking around, hit a bump and then immediately belly slid into a group of marines.
lastly the obs. i think that as a passive ability it should detect cloaks but NOT break the aliens cloak. rather highlight the alien on marine huds as a silhouette. this makes sneaking into marine areas a bit more dangerous. the alien player may think he is safe because he is still cloaked, but what he doesn't know is that the marines have passively detected him.
the big downside is that alien players may feel they are up against hackers who can see them regardless of cloak. perhaps a better alternative exists. if it is implemented that cloaked aliens are normally 90-95% transparent then the obs's passive detection should simply force the alien to become more visible the closer it is to the obs. up to say 0% transparency within 3 meters of the obs. the alien player should then also see his cloak becoming less effective the closer he gets to the obs. that seems fair.
the normal, active scan from the commander however should still break cloaks.
actions deserve reactions ----> active scans break cloaks
passive abilities get passive results ----> passive detection only marginally helps marines find aliens near the edge of the obs detection range.
soooo yea, after i typed all that i realized the obs part is really better suited to another thread. gonna leave it here since it is semi relevant. will repost in its own thread for its own discussion.
EDITED for OCD spelling and typing reasons.
As for the obs revealing cloaked units, I liked the ns1 motion tracking. A circle appears where the cloaked unit is, but only updates every second or so, so you only get a rough idea where the alien is. I'm sure they'll implement it well when they get to it.
On the flip side. As kharaa I often would be cloaked and waitng. A marine would approach and blow me away. It would seem that there was no way to hide if marines had motion tracking. I could sit still for 5 min and still be highlighted.
I personally love the idea of the observatory increasing the visibility of aliens as they approach it, but I also like the idea of the alarm system. So what if you limited the amount of observatories to 1 or 2, and allowed them to build passive detectors that beep when aliens are within a certain distance of them.