The new alien gameplay
Grissi
Join Date: 2003-08-28 Member: 20314Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Join Date: 2003-08-28 Member: 20314Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">Please Discuss</div>Hey guys
I have tried the new alien commander and I think there are definitely some issues there. As always I end up writing much more than I wanted to but I wanted everyone to know why I came to these conclusions.
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<b>Augmentation and mist</b>
I really don’t like the idea of aliens gaining abilities just by waiting. Aliens can easily get access to the 2nd hive abilities in 6 minutes by only paying 25 res, the only way to counter this is to kill the alien main hive. All good commanders will be spending their mists on that single hive to get these abilities early since they are just too good to skip.
If you go dual hive in the beginning you can get these abilities in 4:30 but you will only have 2 rts, you will need a gorge for that to work.
About the mist, it is mainly used to get rts up and to get augmentation. Lifeforms to egg around the hive to getting effect from the mists.
<i>Suggested changes:</i>
I think Augmentation should have increased tres cost but keep the timing the same (6 min if commander spams mists). This will allow marines to prevent augmentation with good pressure, also encourages aliens to get early chamber upgrades to be able to stay in the game. This also forces aliens to keep map control, otherwise they could get augmentation easily by staying on 1-2 rts. I would say somewhere between 30-70 tres cost would be a very fitting number. This with the new cysts cost would make tres very important to the aliens.
About mist, I think it needs more useful uses. maybe increased regeneration for a building or lifeforms if it's not being damage but that would make gorges less important, but probably still stay effective. This could also be a 2nd energy based ability because I also think that alien commander should get 1-2 more energy based abilities. Then he would have to choose which one he wants to use. I also think that all hive energy should go into a single pool instead of being induvitually spread across the hive (same with marines nano shield abilities). But that's nothing major.
<b>Chamber upgrades</b>
The 2nd issue is how hard it is to get upgrades early. Since it costs 40 tres just to get a upgrade it is simply too risky to try early silence. You would need a gorge for cysts and you would only have 2 rts. This is a limiting factor to alien strategies.
There is also another issue with upgrades, its how limited your choices are. When you got chambers up in ns1 you got 3 upgrades to choose from, this allowed different lifeforms to gain different benefits (eg. skulk silence, gorge adrenalin, fade celerity). If Mc would be picked today the only upgrade used would be celerity because its not worth 20 res to get another one til 2nd hive.
<i>Suggested changes:</i>
To allow aliens to get upgrades viable it should cost 20-30 tres early game to get a upgrade up. This would allow aliens to get a chamber upgrade and 2 rts with gorge support. I think 30 res would be rather good.
Now to encourage more chamber use they would either need to made cheaper (maybe 15 tres) or all in a single structure. This would need to fit into 30 tres limit.
<b>Support structures and pres</b>
The support structures are not used as much because of the energy costs(crags) I think the problem here lies in the energy cost. Also the commander has no use for pres
<i>Suggested changes:</i>
I think support structures abilities should have pres cost. This would allow aliens to use more skills such as cloak and umbra if they have a good economy going. This could make forward crags more viable since you would be able to umbra as soon as you got the crag up. The cost could be adjusted, probably somewhere between 5-15 pres. The alien commander also needs some abilities that cost pres to prevent him for just saving for onos, they can’t be really important though since it would encourage dual commanding(like mist).
He probably needs around 3-5 abilities that he can use that cost pres, maybe something he can do with the environment to support his players similar to rupture(I don’t like rupture though, no one likes a visual blocking ability). I would say max 1 negative ability that is very powerful but all other abilities should be positive. (they can be very powerful if its something that marines can counter, like with welders/flamers etc). Could also be connected to the hive maturity.
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About growing structures, I think its a good thing to keep. Even though they would have no effect on the tech on the alien side it’s interesting to have structures with less hp when they were just put up, makes marine pushes more rewarding.
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Lastly, alien commander is to easy to play. Its actually so easy that our commander plays on the field almost ⅕ of the match. It’s also bit boring since you are mainly waiting and you can’t really interact with your players in any way. This definitely needs some improvements.
Also the gorge is really not needed in the early game to build structures, his main use is extra cysts if you go for high tres strategy. Extra building time was still a improvement.
*******
The new patch definitely improved the competitive gameplay a lot, and hopefully the casual gameplay as well. There are still issues though with fades survivability(right click escapes) and lerk bilebomb but that can be discussed in another thread(also plenty of time to fix it).
As always please comment whether you agree or not and please leave a reason why you did. :)
I have tried the new alien commander and I think there are definitely some issues there. As always I end up writing much more than I wanted to but I wanted everyone to know why I came to these conclusions.
---
<b>Augmentation and mist</b>
I really don’t like the idea of aliens gaining abilities just by waiting. Aliens can easily get access to the 2nd hive abilities in 6 minutes by only paying 25 res, the only way to counter this is to kill the alien main hive. All good commanders will be spending their mists on that single hive to get these abilities early since they are just too good to skip.
If you go dual hive in the beginning you can get these abilities in 4:30 but you will only have 2 rts, you will need a gorge for that to work.
About the mist, it is mainly used to get rts up and to get augmentation. Lifeforms to egg around the hive to getting effect from the mists.
<i>Suggested changes:</i>
I think Augmentation should have increased tres cost but keep the timing the same (6 min if commander spams mists). This will allow marines to prevent augmentation with good pressure, also encourages aliens to get early chamber upgrades to be able to stay in the game. This also forces aliens to keep map control, otherwise they could get augmentation easily by staying on 1-2 rts. I would say somewhere between 30-70 tres cost would be a very fitting number. This with the new cysts cost would make tres very important to the aliens.
About mist, I think it needs more useful uses. maybe increased regeneration for a building or lifeforms if it's not being damage but that would make gorges less important, but probably still stay effective. This could also be a 2nd energy based ability because I also think that alien commander should get 1-2 more energy based abilities. Then he would have to choose which one he wants to use. I also think that all hive energy should go into a single pool instead of being induvitually spread across the hive (same with marines nano shield abilities). But that's nothing major.
<b>Chamber upgrades</b>
The 2nd issue is how hard it is to get upgrades early. Since it costs 40 tres just to get a upgrade it is simply too risky to try early silence. You would need a gorge for cysts and you would only have 2 rts. This is a limiting factor to alien strategies.
There is also another issue with upgrades, its how limited your choices are. When you got chambers up in ns1 you got 3 upgrades to choose from, this allowed different lifeforms to gain different benefits (eg. skulk silence, gorge adrenalin, fade celerity). If Mc would be picked today the only upgrade used would be celerity because its not worth 20 res to get another one til 2nd hive.
<i>Suggested changes:</i>
To allow aliens to get upgrades viable it should cost 20-30 tres early game to get a upgrade up. This would allow aliens to get a chamber upgrade and 2 rts with gorge support. I think 30 res would be rather good.
Now to encourage more chamber use they would either need to made cheaper (maybe 15 tres) or all in a single structure. This would need to fit into 30 tres limit.
<b>Support structures and pres</b>
The support structures are not used as much because of the energy costs(crags) I think the problem here lies in the energy cost. Also the commander has no use for pres
<i>Suggested changes:</i>
I think support structures abilities should have pres cost. This would allow aliens to use more skills such as cloak and umbra if they have a good economy going. This could make forward crags more viable since you would be able to umbra as soon as you got the crag up. The cost could be adjusted, probably somewhere between 5-15 pres. The alien commander also needs some abilities that cost pres to prevent him for just saving for onos, they can’t be really important though since it would encourage dual commanding(like mist).
He probably needs around 3-5 abilities that he can use that cost pres, maybe something he can do with the environment to support his players similar to rupture(I don’t like rupture though, no one likes a visual blocking ability). I would say max 1 negative ability that is very powerful but all other abilities should be positive. (they can be very powerful if its something that marines can counter, like with welders/flamers etc). Could also be connected to the hive maturity.
----
About growing structures, I think its a good thing to keep. Even though they would have no effect on the tech on the alien side it’s interesting to have structures with less hp when they were just put up, makes marine pushes more rewarding.
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Lastly, alien commander is to easy to play. Its actually so easy that our commander plays on the field almost ⅕ of the match. It’s also bit boring since you are mainly waiting and you can’t really interact with your players in any way. This definitely needs some improvements.
Also the gorge is really not needed in the early game to build structures, his main use is extra cysts if you go for high tres strategy. Extra building time was still a improvement.
*******
The new patch definitely improved the competitive gameplay a lot, and hopefully the casual gameplay as well. There are still issues though with fades survivability(right click escapes) and lerk bilebomb but that can be discussed in another thread(also plenty of time to fix it).
As always please comment whether you agree or not and please leave a reason why you did. :)
Comments
The exact tres costs I don't know about. At the moment augmentation is kind of a buff + nerf for aliens in that it guarantees bile/blink/leap at 5:50 every game short of complete domination, but it also arbitrarily hard caps when you can get these abilities.
The exact tres costs I don't know about. At the moment augmentation is kind of a buff + nerf for aliens in that it guarantees bile/blink/leap at 5:50 every game short of complete domination, but it also arbitrarily hard caps when you can get these abilities.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I was honestly confused that aliens *didn't* get their second abilities with the second hive.
The aliens should need to research the lifeforms they want individually to a balanced cost. Tier 2 shouldent cover all the aliens in one upgrade this should be done for each lifeform. This will fix the problem of all aliens getting stronger at the same time giving the kham more choices and a better flow to the game.
Hives and command chairs should increase the effectivness of the resnodes by X% maybe 10-40%
The gorge needs to go back to being more of a combat/healer/builder to make the gorge a skilled unit. At the moment many competative teams dont want to have two players building. 2/6 players is alot.
I agree with p.res sinks. That is, things that make spending p.res somewhere other than lifeforms attractive. Actually I think better p.res sinks would vastly improve the game by diversifying alien team roles so people aren't just saving for 3-4 fades/onos. On that note I really don't see the problem with "dual commanding" or switching out commander. It is a strategic choice that involves giving up a higher lifeform for some other abilities. I wish something like this was in the game!
I agree on Alien Comm is a bit boring. He builds a few things and using mist, the rest is waiting.
I'm still not sure whether he is really needed at all. With Gorges as builders and all aliens being able to trigger structure abilites like umbra it would be more asymetric and better .... imo
<ul><li>You have to mist your hive regularly.</li><li>You have to build one upgrade as soon as possible.</li><li>You have to build the second hive as soon as possible and after that a second upgrade.</li><li>As soon as maturation is complete, get tier 2 weapons.</li><li>Try to get as many RTs as possible all the time.</li></ul>
You only get to make decisions, when you have to decide where to spend ONE resource. If you have two or three resources (tres, pres, energy) you don't need to make decisions between these.
Solutions:
<ul><li>make every single tier 2 weapon researchable and costly after maturation of the hive (deciding which weapon you upgrade adds more decisions for the com, where to spend the Tres and what species to evolve and push.)</li><li>increase the time and cost for researchable upgrades drastically. (for example the shield could need to mature before you can research carapace or regen)</li><li>make mist cost tres. (It should not be mandatory to mist the main hive as most as possible. It should be a decision, if you mist or not. Another way to achieve this, is to add more than 2 energy dependent abilities for the hive. Again we need to create possibilities for decisions.)</li><li>make mist only work on one building / egg not in a range, adding again more decisions for the kham. (if ranged it only leads to building many upgrade buildings soon and around the hive.)</li><li>make 2 new upgrades which unlock fade or onos, one per hive. (only available after maturation of the hive)</li><li>or add 4 new upgrades for every life form besides skulk. The alien com can "build" these races and as much as he want. (like building tanks in C&C) The aliens only can gestate into another live form, if the pool of available (for example:) fades is not empty AND they have enough pres.</li></ul>
The last point takes freedom from the players but give the com more options to decide which life forms are available and in which numbers. He produces the life forms as eggs and the normal player can decide to gestate into the available life forms. (At start, there should be 2 or 3 gorges pre build.)
- Having 2 (3 if you count energy) resource models next to each other is just clunky. Basically what they're trying to do is spread what was once on one resource model over 2 different ones, making both feel lacklustre, without depth and the overall situation being more unbalanced. (Aliens just need p.res for higher lifeforms, marines first need t.res to research weapons and can only then get it weapons with p.res)
- There's too many higher lifeforms out a given time (due to no one having to gorge and save res for team stuff), making it hard for marines to compete
- Lifeforms, particularly the onos, come out far too quickly, and doesn't properly scale to late game, again making it hard for marines to stay into the game early.
- Alien expansion is still too fast (still no true need for a gorge due to lacking significant 'trade-off' when no gorge is present), gorge still feels extremely non-fulfilling
All these issues were not present in NS 1. Yes, it's true scalability was an issue with the resource model of NS 1, but for now it just looks like they've traded a flawed resource model with an even more flawed one. (At least 6vs6 NS 1 was balanced)
Radical solution:
Bring everything to T.res again, only for the commanders: marine commanders would have to put down weapons/exos where as alien commander would have to put down lifeform eggs. (Alternatively the alien khamm could 'pool' an amount of his resources into a lifeform cache which then enables x amount of lifeform upgrades for players. For example, 50 t.res could buy you 2 fades in the team. Players keep the feel of getting the ability to upgrade + they can still customize their lifeform with upgrades, but they'll at leat need the comm to pool some points in it first. More visible and less confusing than first-come-first-serve dropped evolution eggs)
The radical solution would solve both the NS 1 balance issues as well as most of the issues we see with NS 2. (They'd still need to address the gorge, and make him more central to alien gameplay or at least feel more fulfilling)
The only thing that really needs work is the Gorge, 3rd chamber, and the Exoskeleton for the Marines.
This means that the ability evolutions needed the be cheaper and thus available earlier. That means that you could do bile bomb rushes and get blink fades even earlier than now even if aliens are doing bad in tres wise.
I also like the asymmetry brought by the augmentation upgrade. It causes the aliens the be quite weak in early / mid game without the augmentation but then get a big boost in effectiveness which makes the gameplay very interesting.
I agree with Grissi that the augmentation is little bit too inexpensive as it is now. Mist also feels quite redundant because it is mostly used for maturing the hive. Maybe it will be very interesting part of the game with small fixes to alien build times and economy overall.
I also agree with Grissi about the chamber upgrades. In NS1 aliens could always choose between the three upgrades per chamber while marines were totally dependent of the commander to give weapons. In NS2 it's the other way around. Marines can often pick the weapon they want but aliens usually upgrade only one chamber upgrade which is chosen by the commander. I wish aliens had similar chamber system as in NS1. It gave a lot of flexibility as different playstyles, roles and lifeforms require different chamber upgrades.
I also agree about the support structures and pres. I think that all the structure abilities should cost pres including distress beacon, nano shield, umbra, cloak, etc. Mist and cysts can't really cost pres because then you could trade pres to tech and tres which obviously makes marines unable to destroy the alien economy. Using pres instead of energy causes less structure spam and forces the commanders to do more choices.
I also like the asymmetry brought by the augmentation upgrade. It causes the aliens the be quite weak in early / mid game without the augmentation but then get a big boost in effectiveness which makes the gameplay very interesting.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
For the first thing the bilebomb is a failing gameplay mechanic at the moment due to the speed of the lerk and that they are hard to hit.
Secondly I think alot of the trouble in balance is due to all aliens gaining 100% strength at the same time. The cost for the diffrent tiers will of course need to be balanced. For exampel leap might cost less than bile bomb bilebomb might cost more/less than blink. The price has to be right so the alien kham has more choices to make.
Medpacks however should scale, but since most people don't usually switch comm, the number of medpacks don't scale with players, so the more players the less medpacks per player (making spores stronger for example).
Maybe I'm missing something but it seems the current system has some problems...
Medpacks however should scale, but since most people don't usually switch comm, the number of medpacks don't scale with players, so the more players the less medpacks per player (making spores stronger for example).
Maybe I'm missing something but it seems the current system has some problems...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The idea is that the res spent on lifeforms and weapons scales with players, not necessarily the comm abilities. It doesn't really matter that umbra, medpacks and other tactical abilities can be used more by changing commander since they give you advantage in combat rather than economy. It's related to using the pres for weapons and lifeforms.
With that in mind I completley agree with having each upgrade done induvitually however in mix with augmentation. The commander would have to get augmentation first and then research the abilities (eg. leap, bilebomb) induvitually. This prevents the abilities to come out to early.
This would force the aliens to focus their tech patch instead of just getting everything and at the same time increasing their need for tres. This would also be a good fix for onos since if aliens rush onos they won't have stomp.
There is a question here if the upgrades should be connected with the hive or be put down like the shell.
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2nd hives are already very effective for map control and 2nd upgrade. I would however still like to see infestation be connected to the chamber choices. You could have shades give the current vision ability on infestation and crag hives give the regen. This would also make shade much better and early 2nd hives something that aliens would strive for.
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<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'd like to see the alien commander be able to use his Personal Res to gestate a different player into a lifeform, with necessary tweaks and balance of course.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't like this idea, lets say that you need to play vs a team that has one player who is ridiculessly good with the lerk. Your team spends extra resources and time and manage to trap the lerk and kill it. This should be a major victory for your team however the lerk came back right away since the alien commander could buy him a extra lifeform.
This is why I don't like the idea the alien commander buying lifeforms for his teammates.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->add 4 new upgrades for every life form besides skulk. The alien com can "build" these races and as much as he want. (like building tanks in C&C) The aliens only can gestate into another live form, if the pool of available (for example:) fades is not empty AND they have enough pres.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think the players should always be able to go lerk/fade/onos, it would be enough to limit their abilities with upgrades.
Edit:
Made some improvements.
I like this idea. but not sure it fixes enough of the existing problems
It's a very simple fix to the problem of scalability, and it removes the confusing cluster###### of different resource models interacting with one another. Yes, it would come at the cost of players losing some control, but it gives the comm more control instead. (Similarly to the Ns 1 comm the khamm would get to decide how many fades, lerks and even onos he wants to put available with the resources. Not to mention the HUGE balance implication that lifeforms would once again be a trade-off with alien economy. Sure the alien khamm could make a quick onos available, but that might mean he wouldnt have res for upgrades, or to replace a harvester)
A simple change like this would fix NS 2 balance almost overnight. Trying to fix the current model is likely never going to work, at least not until they address marine weapons costing T.res AND P.res and alien lifeforms costing ONLY P.res. (Not to mention you'll still have the issue of too many higher lifeforms out at any given time)
Don't tell me I'm the first to have come up with this much easier way of going about scaling weapons and lifeforms?
It's a very simple fix to the problem of scalability, and it removes the confusing cluster###### of different resource models interacting with one another. Yes, it would come at the cost of players losing some control, but it gives the comm more control instead. (Similarly to the Ns 1 comm the khamm would get to decide how many fades, lerks and even onos he wants to put available with the resources. Not to mention the HUGE balance implication that lifeforms would once again be a trade-off with alien economy. Sure the alien khamm could make a quick onos available, but that might mean he wouldnt have res for upgrades, or to replace a harvester)
A simple change like this would fix NS 2 balance almost overnight. Trying to fix the current model is likely never going to work, at least not until they address marine weapons costing T.res AND P.res and alien lifeforms costing ONLY P.res. (Not to mention you'll still have the issue of too many higher lifeforms out at any given time)
Don't tell me I'm the first to have come up with this much easier way of going about scaling weapons and lifeforms?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree that it would be easier to work with 1 res model than 2 but I'm pretty sure that pres is here to stay. So we should focus on solutions with the current resource model.
- Easier, cleaner, system
- Proper trade-off between (many) higher lifeforms/weapons and the economy (Also means less higher lifeforms out at the same time) This means you COULD have a fast onos at aliens but it would probably come at the cost of tech or even an extractor.
- More control for both commanders, more strategic depth to the game.
- Proper T.res sinks later in the game, less spam of ARCs/whips/sentries because comms have nothing to spend T.res on anymore (This is also huge imo)
The only con I can think of is less control for the individual player, on aliens (no longer being able to decide when and what to go in terms of lifeforms). For marines it'd be just like in NS1 again. It can hardly be considered a con for competitive play, so it'd only be a potential con in public games (a bad player wasting a fade or onos dro, but that's not very different from a marine in NS 1 wasting heavy armour, is it?)
Sure we can try to come up with solutions that work in the double resource model, but I can't imagine they will ever be as simple and effective as a change like this. IMO what we are seeing now are inherent flaws to the chosen resource model. And mind you I'm not advocating a return to NS 1, what I propose is a mix of NS 1 and NS 2.
I am pretty sure that sums it up best.
It's harder to envisage as easy a solution for aliens because I can't see there ever being a solid reason not have a team of lerk/fades without encorporating those players into the res-model by allowing them to drop rts or buildings (which goes against Kham totally). Making gorges more important will alleviate the problem only slightly but the end result will still be very few skulks on the field beyond a certain point in the game. NS1 managed the flow of lifeforms by forcing people to spend their resources on rts/structures/hives and there should be an equivalent in NS2 unless the design goal is to let the whole team fade and lerk for ultimate chaos. The rfk system also staggered lifeforms even when strategies involved two fades.
RFK goes some way to lessen the impact of the-point-at-which-the-whole-team-fades and I think even a small +1 would help soften this blow but the core of the issue will remain the same. RFK + curbing of the general flow of P.res to aliens would help but is less than ideal. There has to be some way to acquire resources besides background flow or the game will always fall foul to the team-lifeforms-at-once syndrome, even if the first lifeforms are killed. This is a problem that is particularly apparent in public games where there are more players.
For marines, autonomy didn't extend very far save for the disobeying of commands and micro-positioning. It makes sense for UWE to want to allow marines the chance to upgrade themselves from the perspective of the individual's enjoyment of the game. Balancing it is a bit of a nightmare but the reasoning for its introduction is sound enough. I can see a simple model of T.res for commander and P.res for field-players working in this regard because alot of the messiness is down to the comm having P.res - the no late-game t.res sink problem you mention is an issue.
As for aliens, autonomy was never much of a problem in the first place, except that autonomy was instrinsically linked to the team's overall success. Restricting lifeform choices to the Khamm would be a really bad idea because the less proficient players would never get to upgrade their class. Assuming that UWE doesn't actually want a massive lifeform frenzy then I can only see the Khamm's role being diluted back to the gorge. I'm actually really hard-pressed to see how they can curb the presence of lifeforms without seriously threatening the Khamm in general really. I haven't really thought up a very good answer for aliens that doesn't bork one or the other. If the Khamm drops structures, hives and rts then we've already seen 4 of the 6 roles in a standard NS1 competitive tactic (rts-gorge, rt-fade, chambers, hive, lerk, fade) taken care of. If it doesn't drop structures, hives and rts then it's a pretty crappy class.
Marines:
<ol type='1'><li>Combat strength is heavily slanted toward the number of units present.</li><li>The death of a single group member can be marginalized (picking up his weapon, hard to tell which marines are carrying expensive weapons).</li><li>The ability to build structures anywhere gives them a quick and flexible metagame.</li><li>Are decidedly more resource dependent. Marine victories with less than 4 extractors are few and far between.</li></ol>
Aliens:
<ol type='1'><li>Combat strength is slanted toward having the correct life-form for the situation.</li><li>The death of higher life-forms has a large effect on the teams combat capabilities.</li><li>The cyst chain and maturation encourages a more methodical metagame.</li><li>Are decidedly more time dependent. Besides a lucky first fight and a skulk rush, the aliens have no equivalent to a shotty rush or a gl rush. This asymmetry is not a bad thing.</li></ol>
Perceived problems:
<ul><li>The alien commander experience is clunky and non-engaging.</li><li>The acquisition of alien 2nd tier abilities seems automatic given the passage of time, regardless of marine strategy.</li><li>No penalty for alien aggression.</li></ul>
Proposed solution:
<ol type='1'><li>Eliminate augmentation as a hive ability.</li><li>Create a "mutation" bar for each life form that fills slowly over time. </li><li>Dying or changing life form resets this bar to 0. </li><li>When the bar is full, the alien player hears "new trait available" and has their next tier of attacks unlocked. <b>They must spend p.res to evolve them.</b></li><li>2nd and 3rd hives unlock abilities as they used to.</li><li>You may want to allow aliens to fill the bar quicker as the result of a kill, or as the result of standing in an alien commander's nutrient mist.</li></ol>
This changes the metagame flow from "choke the aliens quick before they get augmentation at 6:00" to "can we please focus acid_rain before he unlocks blink?" This also adds a penalty for alien aggression (skulks not wanting to lose their early leap), and frees up the commander to do more interesting things with the new drifters.
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While I have your attention:
Can drifters stop being a "unit" and instead become a killable payload delivery device?
Playing "build the drifter, forget the drifter, find the drifter, tell the drifter where to go, click the drifter, click the drifter ability, click a target" is not really fun. I just want to click the hive, click a commander ability, and then click the map somewhere. A drifter should spawn at the closest hive and automatically path to that location. Once there, if it hasn't been killed, it will dissolve into nutrient mist, an enzyme spray, or stop and cloak. While en route, I will have a level of anxiety that the drifter will be shot and my time/p.res wasted.
Can the commander abilities be unlocked with new hives, just like life-form abilities? Start out with nutrient mist and enzymes, then add scout and a hive-3 commander ability?
Afterwards the tres system would need to be adjusted (increased res gain) so everything would work with the tres. This would also allow aliens to dirrectly attack marine tres since med/ammo would cost tres.
With this there won't be any pres buildup for the commanders and there won't be any issue with dual commanding since pres is useless for a commander. If the alien commander is fixed so he stays in the hive all game then I think this could work very well.
Edit:
Some quick tres calculations I did few weeks back, might be useful to get a feel for the system:
<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n8LXpytd85zLpVD9h7pBFFPPtasvKNMSe3Tl7SQfL_g/edit" target="_blank">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n8LXpyt...3Tl7SQfL_g/edit</a>
We must also consider that the resflow needs to be slower than ns1 since the commanders don't need to spend res to drop weapons/equipment.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My answer to another thread, maybe this is something we should consider.
- Easier, cleaner, system
- Proper trade-off between (many) higher lifeforms/weapons and the economy (Also means less higher lifeforms out at the same time) This means you COULD have a fast onos at aliens but it would probably come at the cost of tech or even an extractor.
- More control for both commanders, more strategic depth to the game.
- Proper T.res sinks later in the game, less spam of ARCs/whips/sentries because comms have nothing to spend T.res on anymore (This is also huge imo)
The only con I can think of is less control for the individual player, on aliens (no longer being able to decide when and what to go in terms of lifeforms). For marines it'd be just like in NS1 again. It can hardly be considered a con for competitive play, so it'd only be a potential con in public games (a bad player wasting a fade or onos dro, but that's not very different from a marine in NS 1 wasting heavy armour, is it?)
Sure we can try to come up with solutions that work in the double resource model, but I can't imagine they will ever be as simple and effective as a change like this. IMO what we are seeing now are inherent flaws to the chosen resource model. And mind you I'm not advocating a return to NS 1, what I propose is a mix of NS 1 and NS 2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Let the pres in the game! No need to take it away. On marine side, you simply let mines and welders infinite. If you than add pRes for kills, you have a benefit for good players, having enough pres to buy one of the available weapons. (which the com has to produce in amounts) Bad players would have a chance to get the weapons too. And mines and welders are free anyway. You could combine this two systems, and <!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>integrating pRes4kills without the downsides.</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
I see no reason why rfk should give pres advandage to the player since it won't really improve the gameplay.
EDIT:
Fixed spelling error.
<!--QuoteBegin-Tweadle+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tweadle)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Restricting lifeform choices to the Khamm would be a really bad idea because the less proficient players would never get to upgrade their class.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think Khaam 'buying' the lifeforms on the battlefield is great!
Naturally, a good system would need to be in place for players to all have an opportunity to take lifeforms, but with that in place the Khaam would now be able to fully 'flavour' the way the battle plays out.
(unlike presently, where playing as Khaam can feel quite detached from the action).
Perhaps he looks for fast growth and makes lots of gorges. Perhaps he is a balanced Khaam, who tries to keep on constant pressure? Perhaps the Khaam tries the risky-but-powerful manoevre of saving for an onos rush.
We would see some great strategy's emerge for aliens, because there is now the co-ordination of the Khaam, who has an (indirect) involvement in the battlefield.
With regards to taking PRES away from marines, I don't think this is necessary as the issue with balance is not with the marines res system, it is firmly with the Khaara's.
And as for scaling the team res system for small and large matches, make the res/second from RTs scaled according to the number of players.
I so no reason why rfk should give pres advandage to the player since it won't really improve the gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh please... than read what I have written <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=117994&view=findpost&p=1928735" target="_blank">on page one</a> and here:
<!--quoteo(post=1929185:date=Apr 24 2012, 01:35 PM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Apr 24 2012, 01:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1929185"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In a game like NS2 where you have one team which has a suicide class as default life form, you will break balance with tRes for kills.
It's way easier for marines to defend than to attack. If you are defending, the aliens have to come to you and you can shoot them. If you are attacking, the aliens can do, what they do best: ambush you.
So what will happen? As soon as the marines start to turtle, they will gain a steady income of tRes for kills, because the aliens<b> have to </b>try to get into the base, in order to win. And skulks <b>will die</b> in this process. Bringing enough tRes for the marines to even turtle harder.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->