Medium Armor
Chris0132
Join Date: 2009-07-25 Member: 68262Members
Join Date: 2009-07-25 Member: 68262Members
<div class="IPBDescription">not as heavy as heavy armor</div>One thing that bugs me about marines, and severely inhibits their performance, is that they all have the same amount of health, and that health is rather low.
This is a problem because it means aliens tend to kill marines really easily, even with level 3 armor upgrades. Also what with exosuits beiing a tier 3 upgrade and presumably extremely powerful, most marines really aren't going to have an option to boost their health, either due to exos being unavailable for most of the game, or because of them being very expensive, or because of them being too much of a game ender.
Point is, I kinda don't like that the only way to really be at all survivable as a marine is to hide behind other marines, they kinda rely too heavily on the rain of bodies approach.
So, It'd be quite nice if you could buy a health upgrade, in the form of a medium armor suit.
It'd be a fairly early upgrade, and would add say, 30 armor on at armor level 1. At armor 2 it would add 40, and armor 3 would add 50, which means an armor 3 marine with medium armor would have 120 armor as opposed to 70 (I think?).
As a tradeoff, you can't use it with a jetpack, and your sprint speed would be reduced, not completely removed, but reduced a noticeable amount. It should also cost about 10 res, not too expensive, but also not free. A good thing to buy certainly, but you would have better options later on, and at the start it might not be the most cost effective choice. With an armor upgrade or two though and before you get jetpacks it could be a very useful upgrade for the team, especially for marines with little money available, as it would significantly increase their survivability and let them serve the important role of meat shield for the rest of the team more effectively.
It also means you have a way to make marines better, without going further into the call of duty zone, with everything being incredibly high damage and people dying instantly, I don't really like that in games. NS has a lot of damage in it already, it could use some more health.
This is a problem because it means aliens tend to kill marines really easily, even with level 3 armor upgrades. Also what with exosuits beiing a tier 3 upgrade and presumably extremely powerful, most marines really aren't going to have an option to boost their health, either due to exos being unavailable for most of the game, or because of them being very expensive, or because of them being too much of a game ender.
Point is, I kinda don't like that the only way to really be at all survivable as a marine is to hide behind other marines, they kinda rely too heavily on the rain of bodies approach.
So, It'd be quite nice if you could buy a health upgrade, in the form of a medium armor suit.
It'd be a fairly early upgrade, and would add say, 30 armor on at armor level 1. At armor 2 it would add 40, and armor 3 would add 50, which means an armor 3 marine with medium armor would have 120 armor as opposed to 70 (I think?).
As a tradeoff, you can't use it with a jetpack, and your sprint speed would be reduced, not completely removed, but reduced a noticeable amount. It should also cost about 10 res, not too expensive, but also not free. A good thing to buy certainly, but you would have better options later on, and at the start it might not be the most cost effective choice. With an armor upgrade or two though and before you get jetpacks it could be a very useful upgrade for the team, especially for marines with little money available, as it would significantly increase their survivability and let them serve the important role of meat shield for the rest of the team more effectively.
It also means you have a way to make marines better, without going further into the call of duty zone, with everything being incredibly high damage and people dying instantly, I don't really like that in games. NS has a lot of damage in it already, it could use some more health.
Comments
Your medium armor idea certainly works in terms of pure numbers, it puts a mid-ground between current lvl 3 and exo, but there are issues.
Medium armor now requires a skulk to bite lvl1 marine 5 bites and a lvl 3 7 bites? This makes skulks useless, and lerk too. Currently skulks are a serious threat to marines until armor 2, this would make them useless as soon a medium armor came in, which would be quite early according to your post.
Also, 4 bites on a lvl 3 marine is easy? How so? lvl 3 armor, at least lvl2 weps, and hanging around for 4 bites is easy :P You must be an amazing skulk :)
Your medium armor idea certainly works in terms of pure numbers, it puts a mid-ground between current lvl 3 and exo, but there are issues.
Medium armor now requires a skulk to bite lvl1 marine 5 bites and a lvl 3 7 bites? This makes skulks useless, and lerk too. Currently skulks are a serious threat to marines until armor 2, this would make them useless as soon a medium armor came in, which would be quite early according to your post.
Also, 4 bites on a lvl 3 marine is easy? How so? lvl 3 armor, at least lvl2 weps, and hanging around for 4 bites is easy :P You must be an amazing skulk :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Skulks have quite a lot of problems with them anyway, so 'it makes skulks useless' is kind of a not-argument to me. Everything makes skulks useless, because skulks don't ever upgrade. It's like saying that starting rifle marines are made useless, except starting rifle marines are actually BETTER than skulks because they at least can benefit from groups. Skulks need a lot of seeing to to make them even remotely relevant to the later game, and while 30 extra armor would certainly be useful at the start, it does cost you, and I'm not sure 30 armor is THAT useful when it costs 10 res. If aliens get celerity and focus, honestly I think even skulks would be able to compete with medium armor, given that they would only cost 4 res to upgrade.
I don't think it would cause many problems with other classes though, fades do a lot of damage, lerks have spores which entirely bypass the armor bonus anyway, and their spikes are actually quite good at whittling down marines, they'd just take longer. You do have to take into account res costs, a marine with a shotgun and armor would cost 30 res, and I think it'd be fairly well balanced against a lerk, better close up but worse at a distance, while being worse than a fade but certainly not trivial.
Its very hard for aliens to notice if marines got level 1, 2 or level 3 armor or weapon upgrade.
it should be a visible thing.
But there is time till summer, so maybe they add it.
I didn't think of that actually, it would be interesting to see how the high t-res/constant p-res drain dynamic would play out.
I'd like to see this in there. There would need to be some change on the marine model to indicate it, of course. 20 res sounds about right for this.
I dunno, I like the idea of there being less good, but more worthwhile upgrades in the game. The high end stuff is good if you can afford it, but you'll appreciate the reliable, mundane choice a lot more.
Aliens have it to a degree with upgrades, they're always good to have, and don't cost much, so you should always get them if you can, marines don't really have anything like that, it'd be nice if they did.
If you start adding stuff on it kinda loses the point, marines don't need another endgame tech, but they could use some cost effective early-midgame tech and a health booster. The other point of it is that rather than being a weapon you die and give to someone else, it's something you die and have to re-buy. On the one hand it means you have to keep paying for it, on the other hand it means it doesn't have to cost very much because it can't be passed around. It's an upgrade for you and not everyone else on the team. Potentially less cost effective overall, but far more cost effective for you personally.
An issue with this is that it basically works the same way that the developers don't want to give the hmg to marines. It's an upgrade that would make the default obsolete.
There would have to be some tradeoff otherwise everyone would keep buying it without a second thought. The suggestion I had was to put it within the same category of jetpacks and exosuits, providing a lategame middleground between firepower and mobility.
That is right. But Chris has a point too. We don't need another late game tech. Heavy Armor and HMG will take this part.
We need a tech for the marines, that close the balance gap to the 2nd hive.
There has to be a tradeoff. Yes. But it should be in the cost or movement speed.
We need a tech for the marines, that close the balance gap to the 2nd hive.
There has to be a tradeoff. Yes. But it should be in the cost or movement speed.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Basically this, in the early game the tradeoff is that 10 res for 30 extra armor per life is a little expensive, in the midgame it comes into its own as you have more money and armor upgrades to boost its efficiency, and in the lategame the tradeoff is that there are potetially better things for you to buy in the form of jetpacks and/or exosuits.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the default being obsolete when the upgrade is simply a better version of it. The argument against HMG was not, as far as I know, that it makes the LMG obsolete, but that it makes EVERYTHING obsolete. There is virtually no reason to use any other weapon except for maybe one or two GL guys.
Whereas a health upgrade isn't the same, aliens get carapace very cheaply, and there isn't really any reason not to use it considering how good it is as an upgrade. Unlike HMGs however it just adds more HPs to your dude, it doesn't replace their attack with a different but universally better one, it doesn't really change the way you play, it just expands your abilities a bit.
There would also be a minor tradeoff in the reduction of sprint speed which makes you more situationally survivable, you're less likely to need to run away, but you can't run away as well if you do need to, but mostly I don't really think there needs to be a tradeoff other than a small cost that you might want to spend on some more advanced equipment.