Alien Comm
RisingSun
RisingCalifornia Join Date: 2004-04-19 Member: 28015Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
RisingCalifornia Join Date: 2004-04-19 Member: 28015Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">How to make it different</div>I posted a VERY rough idea how to make the Alien Comm even more different than the Marine Comm <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=118901&st=0#entry1942799" target="_blank">here</a>
My idea is this. Each Chamber and upgrade benefits the Comm as well as the players and changes his or her play style. Instead of just choosing a chamber because of the upgrades you receive why not make it fun/different for the comm as well. Each chamber would focus the comm on a play style and each upgrade would give the comm an ability as well.
Short of it:
Crag hive = Fortress comm, More defense but slower expansion. Gives comm a structure only heal and more armor to structures through the respective upgrades.
The other hives follow suit in a less than creative way. This was just to give the idea some form to build on.
It would be nice to also come up with an ability the comm gets from just picking the type of chamber. This would personalize each choice the comm makes and give the commander more room to develop play style the marine comm does not have. Marine comms are all about team support and front line attention. The Alien Comm is the "Gardener" and it would fit nicely i think.
What do you all think of the idea. Ways to improve the idea can be posted at the link.
My idea is this. Each Chamber and upgrade benefits the Comm as well as the players and changes his or her play style. Instead of just choosing a chamber because of the upgrades you receive why not make it fun/different for the comm as well. Each chamber would focus the comm on a play style and each upgrade would give the comm an ability as well.
Short of it:
Crag hive = Fortress comm, More defense but slower expansion. Gives comm a structure only heal and more armor to structures through the respective upgrades.
The other hives follow suit in a less than creative way. This was just to give the idea some form to build on.
It would be nice to also come up with an ability the comm gets from just picking the type of chamber. This would personalize each choice the comm makes and give the commander more room to develop play style the marine comm does not have. Marine comms are all about team support and front line attention. The Alien Comm is the "Gardener" and it would fit nicely i think.
What do you all think of the idea. Ways to improve the idea can be posted at the link.
Comments
Cara is no longer #1 upgrade in every match now that celerity is in and if the benefits for the comm ar balanced I could see this working.
I see this as a potential way to tweak the alien upgrades in a different way to make them more appealing but perhaps not in the normal combat way.
So with crag you have tougher cysts/infestation that spreads at say ~10% slower than normal.
Perhaps it also offers a small buffer to "support" buildings such as RT's and also gorges hydras but not to whips.
With cara being beneficial to aliens already the benefit to the khamm does not need to be huge, but bolstering up the RT's will make it appealing.
With the shift hive you have 10% weaker cysts than the default but spread is say ~15% faster to allow for a faster expansion rate.
If cysts start costing money this wont work though, so we would have to use the perk of reducing the cost of cycsts to allow for faster expansion.
Perhaps build times are also reduced so RT's, whips..everything builds quicker (well all aliens run quicker so why not build quicker).
Celerity already works well from an aliens perspective so this would be a good balance for the khamm.
With shade hive all infestation (and cysts) are hidden from marines
Structures (excluding unbuilt hives) will show up unless a shade is placed nearby to cloak them.
This means that the marines would not see the infestation even when scanned but will still see structures (though not the shade hive area).
This should add a level of mystery as to exactly where the aliens are expanding too and from.
This loss of visibility of infestation etc is only partially removed via an observatory which results in infestation showing up within the obs range (or an increased number as I dont actually know what the range is but would imaging about the size of sub access).
Or in the case of structures when they are damaged (possibly melee or flamer only)/engage in combat they show up for say 15 seconds afterwards.
In doing this we have shade as a potentially powerful upgrade for the whole aliens team in enabling them to operate to a large part unseen to the marines.
Camo is of no help to the aliens on the ground against a good team for very long, most comms build obs early so it has limited long term viability hence why its generally the last hive built.
With this idea the benefits for the aliens is weak on the individual but a huge benefit to the team.
Indeed. I think the hive types are pretty good mix at the moment, with shade just need a bit more.
My main issue with alien commander is you can do nothing outside of infestation. Marine commanders medpack spam, making their people nearly immortal if he is good enough. Alien commanders just watch their people die, helpless unless they walk over to a crag for umbra.
Would be nice if they had some sort of ability to use outside of infestation.
Currently Crag is always favoured...
One dimensional? How is it any different to how things play out currently?
Khamm makes decision for upgrades based on what each upgrade has to offer which they are then stuck with right or wrong.
Without finding a way to increase the benefit of shift and shade hives we are not going to change this, why does the benefit for the alien have to be personal? Why cant they offer a team or khamm function buff as a way of a sweetener?
Currently Crag is always favoured...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Crag is basically essential, although for first hive it is very debatable - shift or crag. Commanders who choose shift have to get a second hive quickly though.
I'll agree that celerity is pretty useful, but only if you know the map. For a new player, you're just getting lost twice as fast.
Runtech - the only way to get alien abilities off of the infestation is with the drifter, which is pretty buggy to move. In a perfect world, though - a healing drifter, enzyme drifter and scouting drifter?
Could be interesting to see more abilities on drifters. They already are basically scouts that have enzyme. Maybe hives could uplock abilties like healing, disorientation and adrenaline boosts.
Totally agree, just throwing the idea out there to improve/polish commander play later on =)
Edit* Thinking more about it once you get two hives with different chambers, it would be nice to be able to switch "modes" that would of course need a cool down. Say 1-2 mins once the other Chamber is chosen which unlocks those set of skills and locks the previous.
Crag Hive chosen: Regen and Carapace gained. Shift Hive built. Shift Hive activated. Crag hive locked for 1-2 minutes. Gain: Celerity and Hyper Mutation. Locks out Regen and Carapace.
So you're saying that as a player you can only ever have two evolutions? I don't think you'll find a lot of support for that.
Only when it comes to the commander. Players are still free to choose as they do now. It would make my Comm idea easier to balance if they could only be one hive type commander at a time and switch with a short penalty to not being able to switch again.
If you look at what I put up there for shift hive as an example it basically makes the carapace upgrade redundant for the khamm by reducing it more than the crag upgrade would have given him (it lowers the upgrades).
Simply put each is minor upgrade that offers a small benefit, shift weakens things so reduces the benefit to the khamm of a crag hive (but no the individual aliens).
Shade simply makes thing actually hidden and scans from marine spawn not work (only scans within x metres of an obs will work)
I dont think the khamm should chose one or the other but that they should offer something to the khamm allowing stacking of upgrades as the hives get built (but as outlined above set up in such a way that they are minor tweaks).
We know that UW are asking for ideas about the shade hive as currently its simply a novelty toy, this is a different way of being able to add some benefit to the team but not screw over combat balancing.
Instead of ink, why not give Shades the ability to cloak players with energy the way it used to? The passive cloaking for structures is great, but right now the shades themselves aren't quite worth it to choose over crag or shift hive.
Or we could go to passive cloaking for players. It worked in NS1, right?