Infestation from a gameplay perspective

Destroid

I have wondering lately about the role of infestation in NS2. By my understanding it currently does the following things:

Reveals marines to hive sight (and arcs?)
Grants a (very) slow health regen to aliens
Limits the aliens ability to expand and capture resource nodes/create buildings, especially if cysts are being destroyed
Limits the aliens ability to create static defences in forward positions
Limits the aliens ability to conceal buildings
Looks really cool (when dynamic infestation comes in)



The most important thing seems to me that if the marines keep destroying it, it sucks up a lot of commander energy that in turn cannot be used to create drifters and therefore buildings. I feel like infestation should give further advantages to the aliens than it already does, to encourage the aliens to spread it further across the map for a tactical purpose, rather than just something you have to do to place buildings. Starcraft's creep, for example, gives a great boon through vision and increased movement speed.

I couldn't find any discussion on this particular topic, and I'm not sure what the designers initially had in mind for infestation. I don't have any great ideas but perhaps something involving the gorge, who is a little lost at the moment.

Papayas

Is it okay if I say just 1 word:


Prototype.

Destroid

Sure. But I'd prefer if you said what you think is good or bad about the current implementation of infestation.

Kouji_San

You might want to add, disabled the marine's ability to build in infested areas. And yes it is currently still evolving so to speak, just as the marine powernode system :)

culprit

I think once the implementation of infestation matures more it will become a more functional aspect of the aliens gameplay.

The one thing that seems lacking to me at the moment is that the connecting 'threads' between nodes is not readily apparent when placing cysts currently. (There's the small directional light pulses, but that isn't effective enough alone) There is a lot of interesting gameplay possibility in creating/destroying the DI network strategically. There definitely needs to be a easily readable map of the cyst-network available to the khamm and gorges. There also really needs to be indicators of the connecting nodes when preparing to place one as a khamm, and hopefully as a gorge too. (Perhaps have these connecting threads highly visible in kharaa vision) Also, the marines should be able to 'highlight' these connections when using a scan.

These changes only give players on both sides the opportunity to see the cysts network better. This will really do much to help develop strategic gameplay based on DI. It makes it possible for both sides to easily understand the critical value of specific areas and structures.

I also think a similar layer of game info needs to be connected to the power-grid and locked/welded doors. These are the highly strategic layers of the game that are currently hard to grasp when playing at the FPS level. Investing some development in making them easy to see/read and highly intuitive should a chief focus.

I'd be so happy to sit down with UWE and talk game-design for a few hours. It'd be a total geek-splosion.

kingmob

I definitely agree that cyst network should be more obvious to the khamm and gorge.
But I would not want such a fragile hierarchy exposed with just a scan.

But in reply to the OP.

The BIGGEST thing the dynamic infestation adds in my opinion is
atmosphere.

The original NS1 maps usually had sections designed more mariny and sections designed more alien like.
The building of structures added ALOT to showing an area occupied.

But when me and my friends first saw that tech video of the infestation we talked for hours about it.
It would mean every map could be just designed as living/working spaces.

The infestation would be a huge delineation.
It would be like every alien book movie when they stumble on the gooey stuff.
"What's this commander?"
"It's that stuff that sticks to our shoes, again. It'll takes weeks to get this crud off...ahhhhh!"

Papayas

Well then, let me add my input.

I don't like the current implementation of infestation (Cysts) because it is way too obvious and it is near impossible to hide effectively so if someone manages to sneak their way through the defenses and gets to the start of the infestation they can easily destory that and the rest that follow it. All of that hard work is now ruined.

Maybe when the 3D infestation comes out it will cover the cyst so you can only see the top making it less easy to see it and kill the chain.


I still want the idea of Infestation slowly spreading by itself without having the commander to help it. That way it can get to the little areas and cover them so it doesn't prevent the commander from placing structures.