Why cysts should cost energy instead of p.res.
Xarius
Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
First off, let me say that I am incredibly excited about the upcoming changes to the alien commander in 205. I think the entire NS2 community appreciates UWE paying close attention to its concerns in regards to the alien commander and alien balance in general, and these new changes will surely make this feature a more memorable experience. That being said, I do felt the need to bring up an additional 'issue' with the alien khammander that has thus far not been addressed, as has to my knowledge not even been debated in depth. This issue is the cost of cysts, and their place in the resource model. Cysts used to cost energy, they then went to costing p.res, and it looks like in 205 they will continue costing p.res, while becoming even cheaper. I would like to argue in this short, and hopefully to-the-point post, that cysts should go back to costing energy.
Before I go into my reasoning, let's ask ourselves the question: what is p.res used for? If we look at the marine commander, this is immediately clear. P.res are used to aid your troops on the battlefield, this can be done by providing health, stimpacks, ammo and even by providing them with better weapons. On the alien side however, things are somewhat different; not only are p.res used to support your troops on the battlefield through cyst abilities and pre-evolved lifeforms, they are also used for crucial expansion and map control. So unlike with its marine counterpart, for some reason, map control too is bound to the khammander's personal resources.
What does this mean for gameplay?
- It opens the door to 'comm-switching' (since you can have one player spend p.res on expansion and have someone else come in to spend his p.res on alien lifeform support)
- It is generally a weak mechanic to control alien expansion speed (due to p.res scaling with amount of extractors and cysts being so cheap)
- There is a trade-off between more field suport and 'more' (or sustained) map control for the alien commander
It is my belief that as a result, we are dealing with a significant design inconsistency.
Let's look at the use of energy. The marine commander needs it for: beacon, scan, nano-shield and probably nano-build. For the khammander the available mechanics (thus far) are: nutrient mist (the new catalyze), shade cloak and crag umbra.
Now, as someone pointed out in the original thread about the 205 khammander:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->2.) To the people afraid of insta-bile-bomb rush, read the timing in the linked document. It takes > 6 minutes to mature a hive with constant misting, and > 18 without. and that has to pass before aliens can even start researching augment to get bile bomb.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> What is of importance here is the huge time differential between a continuously misted hive and one that isn't. Given the simple fact that there are few things the khammander has to spend energy on, continuously misting a hive to speed up its build time is going to be the primary energy sink, certainly early in the game. (It doesn't help that shade cloak is a bit of a flawed and tedious mechanic, and that umbra is very situational at best)
Not only will this become an incredibly boring/repetitive task for the alien commander to devote all his time on, it also makes the 'max hive maturation time' kind of redundant. (Since there is no reason why you would ever take the full 18 minutes) This 'misting' task comes at no significant trade-off, at no actual cost to the alien economy, despite the fact that you are essentially 'speed-teching'.
This is why I propose moving cysts to energy as well.
What will this do?
- Create a trade-off between increasing map control or speeding up the maturation of the existing map control.
- Equalise the use of p.res for marine and alien khammander
- Ads additional depth to energy management and the khammander's choices
- Make early cyst losses more detrimental to an alien economy. (i.e having to replace a lot of cysts will make you unable to speed maturation all the time)
- Adds additional importance to second or third hive (more hives = quicker map control and easier to sustain that map control)
Not only that, one could argue that it feels very unnatural that a commander has to use 'personal resources' to spread infestation, which is something that is critical to the alien economy. A problem with them costing energy before was that it hampered alien expansion, which is why they were moved to p.res when instead they should have just been made cheaper on energy.
Please do consider giving cysts on energy another chance.
Thanks for reading
Before I go into my reasoning, let's ask ourselves the question: what is p.res used for? If we look at the marine commander, this is immediately clear. P.res are used to aid your troops on the battlefield, this can be done by providing health, stimpacks, ammo and even by providing them with better weapons. On the alien side however, things are somewhat different; not only are p.res used to support your troops on the battlefield through cyst abilities and pre-evolved lifeforms, they are also used for crucial expansion and map control. So unlike with its marine counterpart, for some reason, map control too is bound to the khammander's personal resources.
What does this mean for gameplay?
- It opens the door to 'comm-switching' (since you can have one player spend p.res on expansion and have someone else come in to spend his p.res on alien lifeform support)
- It is generally a weak mechanic to control alien expansion speed (due to p.res scaling with amount of extractors and cysts being so cheap)
- There is a trade-off between more field suport and 'more' (or sustained) map control for the alien commander
It is my belief that as a result, we are dealing with a significant design inconsistency.
Let's look at the use of energy. The marine commander needs it for: beacon, scan, nano-shield and probably nano-build. For the khammander the available mechanics (thus far) are: nutrient mist (the new catalyze), shade cloak and crag umbra.
Now, as someone pointed out in the original thread about the 205 khammander:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->2.) To the people afraid of insta-bile-bomb rush, read the timing in the linked document. It takes > 6 minutes to mature a hive with constant misting, and > 18 without. and that has to pass before aliens can even start researching augment to get bile bomb.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> What is of importance here is the huge time differential between a continuously misted hive and one that isn't. Given the simple fact that there are few things the khammander has to spend energy on, continuously misting a hive to speed up its build time is going to be the primary energy sink, certainly early in the game. (It doesn't help that shade cloak is a bit of a flawed and tedious mechanic, and that umbra is very situational at best)
Not only will this become an incredibly boring/repetitive task for the alien commander to devote all his time on, it also makes the 'max hive maturation time' kind of redundant. (Since there is no reason why you would ever take the full 18 minutes) This 'misting' task comes at no significant trade-off, at no actual cost to the alien economy, despite the fact that you are essentially 'speed-teching'.
This is why I propose moving cysts to energy as well.
What will this do?
- Create a trade-off between increasing map control or speeding up the maturation of the existing map control.
- Equalise the use of p.res for marine and alien khammander
- Ads additional depth to energy management and the khammander's choices
- Make early cyst losses more detrimental to an alien economy. (i.e having to replace a lot of cysts will make you unable to speed maturation all the time)
- Adds additional importance to second or third hive (more hives = quicker map control and easier to sustain that map control)
Not only that, one could argue that it feels very unnatural that a commander has to use 'personal resources' to spread infestation, which is something that is critical to the alien economy. A problem with them costing energy before was that it hampered alien expansion, which is why they were moved to p.res when instead they should have just been made cheaper on energy.
Please do consider giving cysts on energy another chance.
Thanks for reading
Comments
Additionally to counter the late game cyst spam, I proposed <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=117822&st=0&p=1925866&#entry1925866" target="_blank">changes to the flamethrower</a>. (points 2 - 5 of the first list)
I guess umbra and shade could easily go to p.res, since they too are 'field support'. (Though I'd much rather they get rid of having to manually cloak buildings and units and go back to NS1 automation)
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Player resources are used for anything that scales with the number of players, or increases the potence of a particular player (buying weapons, evolutions, lifeforms, medpacking a player)
Team resources are used for anything that affects the overall potential or power of a team, or creates a team structure capability (most structures, researching upgrades, ARCs, Sentries, MACs, Drifters)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There are three things I can comment on:
(0. Com swapping to spend PR isn't a problem at all imo. If com has no res, and another player spends alot of res on cysts, that means both have less for lifeforms. Although people who already are lifeforms (onos can disappear into hive!) could chip in with their surplus which DOES make it a tedious mechanic. But then again I've never been in a situation where waiting for a few ticks of income wasn't enough.)
1. Cyst spam when there's 2-3+ hives in play. I thought this was the biggest reason they changed it from energy to PR.
2. What will comm then use his res on? When he saves up to onos there will be pressure of onosing and contributing to the fight.
Provided these dilemmas are solved I'm for having it your way!
edit: ok, I will look pretty stupid now... I hadn't considered removing energy and replacing it with PR at all, which is atleast an equally good solution imo
Cosing t.res would already be better as well, though that may lead to some other problems and still provides no trade-off to the khamm spending all his energy on nutrient misting.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->1. Cyst spam when there's 2-3+ hives in play. I thought this was the biggest reason they changed it from energy to PR.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This would still be a problem yes, but it's also a problem when aliens hold 5 - 6 extractors currently. Energy wouldn't solve this issue, though providing more valuable energy sinks for the khammander could in fact solve it. (Perhaps shift and other alien abilities that come later in development may provide that necessary 'additional energy sink' later in the game, with multiple hives)
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->2. What will comm then use his res on? When he saves up to onos there will be pressure of onosing and contributing to the fight.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> They're adding a ton of cyst abilities that will cost p.res, so that shouldn't be a problem. Pre-evolving lifeform eggs may have a big impact on alien gameplay, though it's hard to tell without playtesting really.
This would still be a problem yes, but it's also a problem when aliens hold 5 - 6 extractors currently. Energy wouldn't solve this issue, though providing more valuable energy sinks for the khammander could in fact solve it. (Perhaps shift and other alien abilities that come later in development may provide that necessary 'additional energy sink' later in the game, with multiple hives)
...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
not really, it still keeps the com res down preventing him from evolving to high lifeforms...and cysts don't last very long inside marine base, if they do, then marines almost lost anyway
<!--quoteo(post=1926737:date=Apr 18 2012, 07:22 AM:name=weezl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (weezl @ Apr 18 2012, 07:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1926737"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->not really, it still keeps the com res down preventing him from evolving to high lifeforms...and cysts don't last very long inside marine base, if they do, then marines almost lost anyway<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Because having the comm evolve to a high lifeform is a real issue... If the khamm is no longer khamming he/she has either stepped out to leave the game, join in on the final push into marine base, or, someone else was stepping in to become the khamm. Either way why should previous khamm have to sacrifice their p.res for the soul sake of being the khamm? By that time having an extra fade/onos really doesn't make a difference to the overall standing of the game. (Game usually ends up in a one-base marine turtle anyways)
I like this idea if you make cysts cost 1 res, cheapen the extractors a little bit, and add a little bit more starting res.