Ideas to STOP med-spam on marine side ;-)
Price
Join Date: 2003-09-27 Member: 21247Members
Join Date: 2003-09-27 Member: 21247Members
<div class="IPBDescription">simple ideas</div>The healing with armory is like aliens and hive healing.
The gorge can heal teammates but he is slow and weak, so he can not walk from one side of the map, to another.
What i want to say, the marine commander can just drop like 20 medpacks on one marine.
I guess the spam is stupid and not needed, the nanoshield is there to help the marine.
idea #1
Whats about a cooldown for medpacks?
for example:
a marine get a medpack, then a icon on his HUD and over his Head apears like:
<img src="http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/822/test1f.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
ok i suck at painting, it would be better visible ingame
<img src="http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/2536/asdasra.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
So he can only get the next medpack after 3 seconds.
Idea #2
whats about SLOW healing?
Like in diablo 2, you know in the most games you got a potion, you use it (drink) and then your health goes SLOW to 100%, thats way better then the medspam i guess.
random idea:
there some drinks dispensers in some maps, why not give the marine like for 1 res a drink which heals 50%? like this animation:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gZ1tJPtJ-AU#t=45s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...1tJPtJ-AU#t=45s</a>
The gorge can heal teammates but he is slow and weak, so he can not walk from one side of the map, to another.
What i want to say, the marine commander can just drop like 20 medpacks on one marine.
I guess the spam is stupid and not needed, the nanoshield is there to help the marine.
idea #1
Whats about a cooldown for medpacks?
for example:
a marine get a medpack, then a icon on his HUD and over his Head apears like:
<img src="http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/822/test1f.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
ok i suck at painting, it would be better visible ingame
<img src="http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/2536/asdasra.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
So he can only get the next medpack after 3 seconds.
Idea #2
whats about SLOW healing?
Like in diablo 2, you know in the most games you got a potion, you use it (drink) and then your health goes SLOW to 100%, thats way better then the medspam i guess.
random idea:
there some drinks dispensers in some maps, why not give the marine like for 1 res a drink which heals 50%? like this animation:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gZ1tJPtJ-AU#t=45s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...1tJPtJ-AU#t=45s</a>
Comments
Marines can store up to 2 med packs to use at their discretion.
Med packs are stored like a weapon slot ( press x key then fire to use )
A Commander can drop 50 med packs but marines can only pick up and store 2 at a time and must lose use of their weapons by swapping weapon slots to a med pack to heal.
Make it so marines can also drop them or use them on team mates if they have them stored.
Like left for dead without the progress bar.
Because there's nothing wrong with instant-heal medpacks?
I know, I know: the downfall is it cost resources to spam medpacks. In NS1, this worked because you were affectively choosing between keeping a marine alive or getting an upgrade like a shotgun or jetpack to a marine. With the two res model in NS2, this is almost completely mitigated.
Yes, this. It used to include weapons, now its just beacon. I like the fact that medpacks are instant because that and always having a higher tech gun are the two things which allow marines to convert map control dominance into combat dominance. Both teams need ways to do that.
I don't like that the entire 'skill' of using medpacks is based around horrible controls. Why are medpacks not available from anywhere in the menu? Why aren't they tied to buttons always visible on the side of the screen or always available hotkeys? Why are you supposed to click directly on marines rather than including a snap to function like the resource towers? Or making it an area effect? Why do you have the ability to drop dozens of them instead of making it a heal over time effect that lasts for a while?
Just smooth the whole thing out. An area effect 'nano cloud' ability which costs quite a bit more but heals say, 10hp/s for 20s would work much better. You can drop them easily, they work best on groups of marines so it encourages teamwork, the cost scales perfectly with increasing team numbers whereas single-use medpacks never will, and you could easily put it on the side of the commander screen and fire it like an off map power in company of heroes or something.
If my RTS controls predate my keyboard then something is wrong. There's a lot you can learn from the new RTS games that have been developed over the last decade.
I already know NS1 players aren't going to go for this though because it isn't a replica of NS1 mechanics.
All I can say for sure is, while the med drops hold a bit of nostalgia value for me I suppose, I do think it's not the best way to go about it. <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
The system of alien swarm puts teamplay A LOT forward:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=OKRyHYMwDQ0#t=52s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...RyHYMwDQ0#t=52s</a>
i also love the weld door system, the unknown worlds team should take a look at the game.
But maybe the "alien swarm healing" system is to slow but teammates will stay more together i guess..
So the com drops just one medpack which heal "in a cycle" with nanotech ^^.
I will say that a "equipment slot" would be great.
For like welder, med-kits, mines and on.
Also, to help as well, I feel a feature like this would be best implemented so that when using the ability in an area with a quick moving marine, or multiple marines, is to first allow the ability to be used when clicking on, or near a marine. As for a group of marines in an area, the heal function may prioritize weaker players, or those that requested the heal.
As for visual implementation, a cascading blue disc running through the length of the player, or something else sci-fi would be great, and I feel would better fit the game than the current dynamic. I also feel ammo pack drops need to be changed equally in some similar fashion, but I haven't thought of what I think would be a good alternative.
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=115515" target="_blank">Beacon, Nano-Shield, Building energy doesn't scale with resource situation</a>
sure, if you always play on marine side :P
I mean okay the gorge can heal his teammates "for free" but on marine side the medspam is horrible, it only cost energy.
The wiki is weird it said "When a wounded marine walks over a med pack, he will automatically pick it up and recover up to 50 health (marine health will never exceed 100). "
But i always get 100% hp, bug? or just old wiki? i mean it said that the medpack cost 1 personal ressources which is also wrong :P
But i always get 100% hp, bug? or just old wiki? i mean it said that the medpack cost 1 personal ressources which is also wrong :P<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wiki is right. Medpack heals 50 health and costs 1 personal resource. Why do you claim it is wrong?
I don't either see in any problem with the medspam. To be honest i find it's one of the best features of the game.
+1 except i dont know if it costs 1 or 2 personal res. but i remember being unable to drop at some point, because i ran out of res.
as for the mechanics, i think something should be changed there. maybe its my habbit from a previous version when it was impossible to drop them right onto a marine, but a marine randomly running around to dodge an alien is hard to heal as there is a delay before the medpack will fall on him. i dont see how skill can really help there, success depends on the direction the marine will move. sure you can improve a bit by guessing that direction, but it still feels kinda random. and i dont think this should depend on luck in any way.
other than that i think it's balanced because marines wont recover their armor. this makes them a lot easier to kill even when they have 100 health.
i think the actual balance issue is that the kharaa commander has no direct way to spend their personal res. however, you can just go gorge and place some hydras around the hive every now and then. people rarely do that, but i can only recommend it.
Could limit to only one sending at a time to further promote commander foresight.
Simultaneous limit or not, it would serve as a trigger for the aliens to be aware that medpacks are on the way and to either get out of there or finish them up quickly.