<!--quoteo(post=1897439:date=Jan 26 2012, 08:48 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Jan 26 2012, 08:48 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897439"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm kind of worried how much pressure the onos is having as a game finisher. It certainly can do that, but at the same time I'd like to see it also as a viable unit among the others rather than some cinematic doomsday creature that rolls over marine fortifications like paper mass props.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, this is the problem I have when people say "just wait for onos/hmg/exosuit/nukes/whatever"
The classes should not be stapled to certain stages of the game, except by the time it takes to get 2/3 hives to unlock them
You shouldn't be *required* to use the onos to win every late game as aliens - that would point to a very poorly balanced "everything else"
The way it works in Starcraft 2, for instance, is that ultralisks/broodlords are unlocked at the top of the tech tree but easily beaten by the bottom of the tech tree (marines/stalkers/marauders). The fact that a unit is 'high tech' means it requires support and has power in a very specific niche, not that it takes over the late game completely. Another good example of this would be...well, the marines' classes in the game currently. None of the weapons is "for the late game" - they are useful against every type of alien lifeform at any stage of the game, once they are available following armory research.
Even if the onos is put in the game and is the ultimate siegebreaker, the whole rest of the game will still be way too tilted toward marines turtling and making their hopeless situation into an agonizing waste of time for the aliens.
If you've played NS1 then I'm not sure what you're so worried about. Onoses were the base breaker and were invaluable for ending the game against turtling marines, but that didn't mean they played no role in the rest of the game. Their role in NS2 should be similar one way or another.
So it's pretty easy for marines to turtle in their own base. The game is over, aliens have three hives, higher lifeforms but just can't seem to end the game. GLs constantly exploding, sentries in base, 6> marines firing with upgraded weapons. My solution would be to FORCE the marines to push out. How? If after a certain amount of time, the marines base powernode will 'run out' and repairing will not prevent this. Marines must have at least two powernodes to prevent this from happening. This will either make the marines push out, regain some map presence, and come back for a win of epic proportions, or get skulked to death. Either way, no more boring turtling end games.
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited January 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1897591:date=Jan 26 2012, 07:44 PM:name=Zek)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zek @ Jan 26 2012, 07:44 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897591"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you've played NS1 then I'm not sure what you're so worried about. Onoses were the base breaker and were invaluable for ending the game against turtling marines, but that didn't mean they played no role in the rest of the game. Their role in NS2 should be similar one way or another.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Don't forget that the player resource system in NS2 is completely different from NS1's. The Onos in NS1 was extremely taxing on the team's resources. The power of the Onos in NS2 will probably have to be significantly reduced (as seen by the huge drop in its armor value in the latest builds, despite its absence in the game), as every alien is capable of becoming Onos quickly.
A random idea just came to me. What if each Onos costs Team Resources, in addition to Personal Resources? The Kharaa commander bestow select player(s) to become an Onos, who would become a strategic weapon, controlled by a player.
<!--quoteo(post=1897594:date=Jan 26 2012, 11:09 PM:name=twiliteblue)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (twiliteblue @ Jan 26 2012, 11:09 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897594"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Don't forget that the player resource system in NS2 is completely different from NS1's. The Onos in NS1 was extremely taxing on the team's resources. The power of the Onos in NS2 will probably have to be significantly reduced (as seen by the huge drop in its armor value in the latest builds, despite its absence in the game), as every alien is capable of becoming Onos quickly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It's not really as fundamentally different as people seem to think. Yes, technically in NS1 the team's resources were divided up rather than multiplied, but the end result was still that each player made his own money at a set rate. The only real difference is that now it scales linearly with team size, and you can't go gorge to drop most structures(although there are still hydras and mini-cysts). For a normal game size, the end result is that you'll probably have one or two more combat lifeforms to a team, so yeah Onoses will probably be weakened a bit to compensate, but not completely reworked or anything(other than the ability changes obviously). For big games we just have to hope that all the Onoses will balance out against all the JPs/Heavies.
Just had another boring long idiotic game where everyone on the aliens team got frustrated and left. We had it won at the half hour mark, and it got to 83:00 when I left!
It wasn't even because of the game's design. Every time we (re)cleared a hive site, our commander would neglect to put a hive there. Our team would try to defend resource towers at the 1 hour mark when both teams have a giant surplus, instead of killing command chairs that are at 30% life. What is it about aliens that makes people unable to coordinate and click on stuff?
Nuclear Dawn suffers from the same problem. Rounds take forever to end and when they do end it's miserable for the losing team. I guess that's what happens when you make the objective to destroy the enemy teams base.
<!--quoteo(post=1897600:date=Jan 27 2012, 12:10 AM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Jan 27 2012, 12:10 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897600"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Just had another boring long idiotic game where everyone on the aliens team got frustrated and left. We had it won at the half hour mark, and it got to 83:00 when I left!
It wasn't even because of the game's design. Every time we (re)cleared a hive site, our commander would neglect to put a hive there. Our team would try to defend resource towers at the 1 hour mark when both teams have a giant surplus, instead of killing command chairs that are at 30% life. What is it about aliens that makes people unable to coordinate and click on stuff?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Perhaps we should be able to see the hive's energy for each hive? I would personally like to know what my Kham is doing with the hive's energy, and it may also remind them to spread infestation more, for the gorges sake.
Onoses won't be able to to eat marines anymore, because it was too frustrating for the victim. Being taken out of the game for what felt like an eternity with no way to even see what's going on. But what if instead they could...
...eat the opponent's weapon?
That might be a way to drain turteling marines of their more expensive weapons.
ZeikkoJoin Date: 2007-12-16Member: 63179Members, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester
<!--quoteo(post=1897622:date=Jan 27 2012, 01:32 PM:name=NurEinMensch)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NurEinMensch @ Jan 27 2012, 01:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897622"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Onoses won't be able to to eat marines anymore, because it was too frustrating for the victim. Being taken out of the game for what felt like an eternity with no way to even see what's going on. But what if instead they could...
...eat the opponent's weapon?
That might be a way to drain turteling marines of their more expensive weapons.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And how is suddenly losing your weapon not frustrating? It's like: "Running around helpless for what felt like an eternity with no way to even shoot at the enemy"
I preferred the eat structure idea. Just as long as it's not like... the IP or CC. Maybe not even the RT.
And yeah, another big issue with onos devouring marines is a corollary to what twiliteblue was saying: Because of the way resources work, every alien can quite easily get onos. And if each onos can devour a marine... you end up with a full spawn queue.
<!--quoteo(post=1897626:date=Jan 27 2012, 12:58 PM:name=Zeikko)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zeikko @ Jan 27 2012, 12:58 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897626"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And how is suddenly losing your weapon not frustrating? It's like: "Running around helpless for what felt like an eternity with no way to even shoot at the enemy"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Less frustrating than dieing, at that's in the game too last I checked. Also it could just mean eating weapons already on the ground.
DghelneshiAims to surpass Fana in post edits.Join Date: 2011-11-01Member: 130634Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited January 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1897630:date=Jan 27 2012, 12:20 PM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Jan 27 2012, 12:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897630"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Because of the way resources work, every alien can quite easily get onos. And if each onos can devour a marine... you end up with a full spawn queue.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Not only that, but there will also be (literally) huge problems with the size of the onos. Imagine 5 onoses (oni? onoi? onos'? oholycrap?) in the corridoors in which currently barely one of them fits in... especially in public play this will frequently cause frustrating traffic jam with the first onos wanting to retreat to heal and the last one wanting to get into battle, on top of all the other classes being frustrated by the blocking of the attack route.
Operating under the assumption that the resource system is fixed:
I can't believe I'm saying this... A way to get an almost classic devour, would be to take an approach similar to Axe's (Legionnaire's) ultimate from DotA (HoN): On devour attempt: - Use a lot of energy (almost all, if not all). - If target marine's health <= x, instantly kill the marine and send them into the spawn queue, and add a bit of extra spawn time, t (digesting time). - If target marine's health > x, only do y damage (failed attempt), where e.g. y = 0.5*x. - Slow the onos' movement for the duration t (digesting time).
The problem is that it does add some degree of uncertainty (sort of), in that unlike DotA/HoN, you can't see the target's health. An upgrade like scent of fear would synergise well though, otherwise you would have to gauge it based on feel and experience.
the problem with that idea is that it would pretty much always better to just gore a marine instead of devouring if it were possible to fail (besides missing) because you then deplete your entire stamina and the marine is still there and able to fight back. it wouldn't even be worth it to gore+devour because assuming onos is gonna be a badass and be able to 2-gore a vanilla marine.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1897630:date=Jan 27 2012, 03:20 AM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Jan 27 2012, 03:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897630"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I preferred the eat structure idea. Just as long as it's not like... the IP or CC. Maybe not even the RT.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'd like to see a devour sentry ability. It'd be a nice siege breaker for an onos to jump in a turtling marine base, gobble a sentry, and retreat until its fully digested, rinse and repeat.
Wasn't gore supposed to have powerful knockback and maybe even a dazing effect to make it more anti-building focused (and getting enemies out of your way)? Rather than particularly high killing power.
Comments
Yeah, this is the problem I have when people say "just wait for onos/hmg/exosuit/nukes/whatever"
The classes should not be stapled to certain stages of the game, except by the time it takes to get 2/3 hives to unlock them
You shouldn't be *required* to use the onos to win every late game as aliens - that would point to a very poorly balanced "everything else"
The way it works in Starcraft 2, for instance, is that ultralisks/broodlords are unlocked at the top of the tech tree but easily beaten by the bottom of the tech tree (marines/stalkers/marauders). The fact that a unit is 'high tech' means it requires support and has power in a very specific niche, not that it takes over the late game completely. Another good example of this would be...well, the marines' classes in the game currently. None of the weapons is "for the late game" - they are useful against every type of alien lifeform at any stage of the game, once they are available following armory research.
Even if the onos is put in the game and is the ultimate siegebreaker, the whole rest of the game will still be way too tilted toward marines turtling and making their hopeless situation into an agonizing waste of time for the aliens.
Don't forget that the player resource system in NS2 is completely different from NS1's. The Onos in NS1 was extremely taxing on the team's resources. The power of the Onos in NS2 will probably have to be significantly reduced (as seen by the huge drop in its armor value in the latest builds, despite its absence in the game), as every alien is capable of becoming Onos quickly.
A random idea just came to me. What if each Onos costs Team Resources, in addition to Personal Resources? The Kharaa commander bestow select player(s) to become an Onos, who would become a strategic weapon, controlled by a player.
It's not really as fundamentally different as people seem to think. Yes, technically in NS1 the team's resources were divided up rather than multiplied, but the end result was still that each player made his own money at a set rate. The only real difference is that now it scales linearly with team size, and you can't go gorge to drop most structures(although there are still hydras and mini-cysts). For a normal game size, the end result is that you'll probably have one or two more combat lifeforms to a team, so yeah Onoses will probably be weakened a bit to compensate, but not completely reworked or anything(other than the ability changes obviously). For big games we just have to hope that all the Onoses will balance out against all the JPs/Heavies.
We had it won at the half hour mark, and it got to 83:00 when I left!
It wasn't even because of the game's design. Every time we (re)cleared a hive site, our commander would neglect to put a hive there. Our team would try to defend resource towers at the 1 hour mark when both teams have a giant surplus, instead of killing command chairs that are at 30% life. What is it about aliens that makes people unable to coordinate and click on stuff?
We had it won at the half hour mark, and it got to 83:00 when I left!
It wasn't even because of the game's design. Every time we (re)cleared a hive site, our commander would neglect to put a hive there. Our team would try to defend resource towers at the 1 hour mark when both teams have a giant surplus, instead of killing command chairs that are at 30% life. What is it about aliens that makes people unable to coordinate and click on stuff?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Perhaps we should be able to see the hive's energy for each hive? I would personally like to know what my Kham is doing with the hive's energy, and it may also remind them to spread infestation more, for the gorges sake.
...eat the opponent's weapon?
That might be a way to drain turteling marines of their more expensive weapons.
...eat the opponent's weapon?
That might be a way to drain turteling marines of their more expensive weapons.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And how is suddenly losing your weapon not frustrating? It's like: "Running around helpless for what felt like an eternity with no way to even shoot at the enemy"
And yeah, another big issue with onos devouring marines is a corollary to what twiliteblue was saying:
Because of the way resources work, every alien can quite easily get onos. And if each onos can devour a marine... you end up with a full spawn queue.
Less frustrating than dieing, at that's in the game too last I checked. Also it could just mean eating weapons already on the ground.
Not only that, but there will also be (literally) huge problems with the size of the onos. Imagine 5 onoses (oni? onoi? onos'? oholycrap?) in the corridoors in which currently barely one of them fits in... especially in public play this will frequently cause frustrating traffic jam with the first onos wanting to retreat to heal and the last one wanting to get into battle, on top of all the other classes being frustrated by the blocking of the attack route.
I can't believe I'm saying this...
A way to get an almost classic devour, would be to take an approach similar to Axe's (Legionnaire's) ultimate from DotA (HoN):
On devour attempt:
- Use a lot of energy (almost all, if not all).
- If target marine's health <= x, instantly kill the marine and send them into the spawn queue, and add a bit of extra spawn time, t (digesting time).
- If target marine's health > x, only do y damage (failed attempt), where e.g. y = 0.5*x.
- Slow the onos' movement for the duration t (digesting time).
The problem is that it does add some degree of uncertainty (sort of), in that unlike DotA/HoN, you can't see the target's health. An upgrade like scent of fear would synergise well though, otherwise you would have to gauge it based on feel and experience.
I'd like to see a devour sentry ability. It'd be a nice siege breaker for an onos to jump in a turtling marine base, gobble a sentry, and retreat until its fully digested, rinse and repeat.