Onos should get bone shield in so it can at least last in a head to head fight with an Exo, apart form that, maybe hitting an Exo at fullspeed should do something to it?
<b>Do:</b> Give it the bone shield. That means invincible at the front (beside the parts on its legs without bones). Why not damage reduction? Because it is highly unintuitive. Making him invul on the front bones, makes it possible to add effects like bullets bouncing of, that scream at every noob: "Invul on the bone plates!" But invul sounds op? No! It just introduces skill to the onos. You can't just run into a room and try to hit as many marines. You need to think about your positioning. Also the health and armor of the onos has to be decreased. 3 Marines should be enough to circle an onos so two can attack him from behind / the sides. Now you finally got an alien that has an useful and unique job and requires skill to be successful with.
Just imagine an onos sitting in a doorway and looking at you... Just looking at you. You can't damage it without GLs or Flamers or flanking. And it sits there and watches you.
<b>Don't:</b> Don't ever increase the health/armor of the onos. That only leads to uselessness of LMGs. Don't ever increase movement speed of the onos. Marines should always have the option to run away from it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like that idea but it has some hilarious potential for griefing if the aliens can push marines back to their only cc before they can get grenades or flamethrowers.
<!--quoteo(post=1970577:date=Sep 3 2012, 02:45 PM:name=Raptor091288)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Raptor091288 @ Sep 3 2012, 02:45 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970577"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I like that idea but it has some hilarious potential for griefing if the aliens can push marines back to their only cc before they can get grenades or flamethrowers.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Problems I see with the proposal are: 1) Onos will suck even more against jetpacks since they will just fly over the bone shield. 2) Onos will become extremely powerful from the front. Stomp and boneplate will result in most people never turning around. 3) Onos will end up shielding his team in corridors, and probably charging in less. Holding outside of open areas, preventing marines from advancing. Perhaps not as dramatic as UWE imagine. 4) Early game onos will be fine if they nerf onos armour a bit. Marines can just flank it when he is in their base.
I have a hard time seeing bone shield being balanced too in the implementation suggested in this thread.
Invulnerability is really a big no-no imo for shooters at any point in time. Perhaps significantly less damage taken frontally only while charging could help, but it will not solve the problem. Best idea I seen is a small HP/AP boost, but this would only work if the onos eggs could only be dropped on 3 hive as to avoid problems with early/mid game marines being unable to take down onos because of lacking upgrades.
The onos is by no means totally useless, it's just atm he dies a tad too quickly. Nothing drastic needs to be done imo... he could use a hive2 ability though (what was that attack in ns1 where the onos used his head-tentacles? :P).
How about all damage received from the front, becomes light damage?
Means when your armour is down, you are weak from all directions since damage types only affect how armour is treated. You cannot stand forever facing forward, but against endgame tech which deals medium and heavy damage you have a large benefit.
<!--quoteo(post=1970597:date=Sep 3 2012, 02:17 PM:name=TimMc)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TimMc @ Sep 3 2012, 02:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970597"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How about all damage received from the front, becomes light damage?
Means when your armour is down, you are weak from all directions since damage types only affect how armour is treated. You cannot stand forever facing forward, but against endgame tech which deals medium and heavy damage you have a large benefit.
Thoughts?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--coloro:#9ACD32--><span style="color:#9ACD32"><!--/coloro-->That sounds better than anything else here.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Light damage from the front might as well be invulnerability... it would make the onos have 3000 effective HP from the front.
So shooting an onos from the front, accounting for light damage conversion and hide armor it would take 430 lvl3 LMG bullets to kill one (that's 9 mags). 19 shotgun shots for a lvl3 shotty. It would take the onos back to being a single unit that takes an entire team to kill. That's too drastic imo. It's also somewhat unintuitive because there is absolutely no positionally dynamic damage anywhere in NS2 atm.
I like most of these ideas but invulnerability is a bit too much, just have the boneshield reduce damage. Imagine many of the small corridors on Mineshaft and Summit, with invulnerability the onos would be completely unstoppable.
<!--quoteo(post=1970597:date=Sep 4 2012, 12:17 AM:name=TimMc)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TimMc @ Sep 4 2012, 12:17 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970597"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How about all damage received from the front, becomes light damage?
Means when your armour is down, you are weak from all directions since damage types only affect how armour is treated. You cannot stand forever facing forward, but against endgame tech which deals medium and heavy damage you have a large benefit.
<!--quoteo(post=1970597:date=Sep 3 2012, 02:17 PM:name=TimMc)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TimMc @ Sep 3 2012, 02:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970597"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How about all damage received from the front, becomes light damage?
Means when your armour is down, you are weak from all directions since damage types only affect how armour is treated. You cannot stand forever facing forward, but against endgame tech which deals medium and heavy damage you have a large benefit.
Thoughts?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Nice, I like it!
Also, we could make bone shield an ability that uses energy, kind of like Onos charge right now. That could be the 2nd hive ability - when activated, bone shield converts frontal damage to energy loss instead. This way we could get some level of invulnerability without it being infinite, and would prevent the stomp + shield spam. During the bone shield ability use, players would move and turn much more slowly, so you would have to make a risky commitment and hope that you don't get flanked by too many marines.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
Give it a shader and make it obvious (onos head down, pinging bullet sounds and effects, shiny bone plate) Oh and don't restrict movement, else you turn the onos into a defensive unit by force instead of allowing the player to choose what is needed, like being able to push into a turtle with bone plate offensively etc.
It'd work. Gore @ tier 1. Bone plate @ tier 2. Stomp @ tier 3.
ArcL!ghtJoin Date: 2007-11-27Member: 63031Members, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester
<!--quoteo(post=1970597:date=Sep 3 2012, 11:17 PM:name=TimMc)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TimMc @ Sep 3 2012, 11:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970597"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How about all damage received from the front, becomes light damage?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1970616:date=Sep 3 2012, 11:35 PM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Sep 3 2012, 11:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970616"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Light damage from the front might as well be invulnerability... it would make the onos have 3000 effective HP from the front.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And that's exactly where he needs to be.
The bone plate acts as either flat 8-10 dmg decrease or decreases the incoming dmg lvl for 1 class. That way it would make exo do normal damage only and onos could get focused pretty fast by an organised team. But that's only from front. Of course the flamer\explosives are still same dmg. 2nd thing is if railguns are ever introduced they can be hard counter to bone plate. Make it act as super high dmg, 175 flat with no bonus from upgrades, 3-5 seconds cooldown between shots.
1v1 onos should be able to take on any solo marine (except maybe exo/jp)
<!--quoteo(post=1970633:date=Sep 3 2012, 03:54 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Sep 3 2012, 03:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970633"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Give it a shader and make it obvious (onos head down, pinging bullet sounds and effects, shiny bone plate) Oh and don't restrict movement, else you turn the onos into a defensive unit by force instead of allowing the player to choose what is needed, like being able to push into a turtle with bone plate offensively etc.
It'd work. Gore @ tier 1. Bone plate @ tier 2. Stomp @ tier 3.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Its a possibility, but I thought onos was getting primal scream?
<!--quoteo(post=1970616:date=Sep 4 2012, 08:35 AM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Sep 4 2012, 08:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970616"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Light damage from the front might as well be invulnerability... it would make the onos have 3000 effective HP from the front.
So shooting an onos from the front, accounting for light damage conversion and hide armor it would take 430 lvl3 LMG bullets to kill one (that's 9 mags). 19 shotgun shots for a lvl3 shotty. It would take the onos back to being a single unit that takes an entire team to kill. That's too drastic imo. It's also somewhat unintuitive because there is absolutely no positionally dynamic damage anywhere in NS2 atm.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> But how long would he last against a dual exo suit?
Do agree it sounds overpowered when you look at the numbers...but exo's can solo 2 onos' (though is pretty screwed and in need of repair) without any help. Comparing onos to LMG is wrong though...it needs to be compared to the miniguns.
<!--quoteo(post=1970660:date=Sep 3 2012, 05:49 PM:name=TimMc)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TimMc @ Sep 3 2012, 05:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970660"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Its a possibility, but I thought onos was getting primal scream?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Any news on this? I've been gone for a while and I was thinking maybe it got axed.
Stomp should do something against exos. Not a knock down, but it should disrupts exos a bit....with a small HUD shake (nothing crazy) and stopping the spin on the miniguns so the exos have to restart the spin. It gives the onos a second or two to get in some hits. It wouldn't disrupt the claw punch, so there is at least some reason to take the single mini gun...the single mg could use some honest utility over the twin mg to justify taking it when both are available. Charge really needs to be made un-boring-ified (easing up on the movement restriction was a good start). Charging could apply some sort of bonus to your next attack...either extra damage or some effect (maybe it already does this??)
But yea its ridiculous how much of a hard counter the exo is to the onos atm. I'm all for counters, but not like this.
Perhaps make bone plate on the front of the onos immune to LMG and shotgun fire but take reduced damage from miniguns and grenade launchers. The onos will still be soft and squishy from the sides and the back.
Fighting an onos is no longer a simple matter of focusing fire at a large target, you will actually have to worry about positioning and flanking in order to take it down.
Don't forget that a damage reduction on the bone shield instead of invul is very unintuitive. How will someone know, that he does less damage from the front? Invul is ok and not overpowered, because the onos has some weak spots on the front legs where he is not shielded. The onos can cover this spots by crouching (try it out). But will get so slow, that he can't do much.
If invul on front really leads to griefing or an op onos, than the solution are some tiny spots (like the front legs) where you can hit it no matter what. Its better than an unintuitive damage reduction. AND you have to aim better to do damage from the front.
PLUS: We can get rid of the unintuitive hide armor. Even an early onos drop by the com isn't such a danger anymore. Because LMG with LvL0 has a chance against an onos without hide armor.
No bone plate on upper front legs: <img src="http://video.supercheats.com/videos/natural-selection-2/Onos_Reveal_1280x720/Onos_Reveal_1280x720.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Yeah. You need to use it with skill to be effective. Also you are always hit-able at the sides and the back. The onos gets never 100% invul. There are always tiny spots, that make him vulnerable.
i like the bone shield concept. it will probably promote marine teamplay and add an additional tradeoff when it comes to attacking buildings e.g. main base powernodes. still, it seems very hard to predict what kind of behaviours and tactics people will come up with so it might turn out to be lame instead. another question is how easily it can be implemented. there are currently no hit-zones and collision can be a very performance-costy issue, not sure if this is the case here. anyway, i don't like the idea of changing damage types on the bone shield as this introduces another hidden mechanic people will not figure out for a long time just by playing. and instead of damage reduction, how about having an umbra-like effect which repels every second bullet?
Bone-Shield sounds all good gameplay wise, but alone with the last trailer the overall image of the Onos is entirely different. That thing charges so hard against an Exo that it's pushed away.
What happened to charge? Imho that would be the stomp of movement, knocking away marines and hitting the main target like an exo with such a force that it has to shut down for a short period of time, making way for skulks to munch it away.
There's no drama and action in emptying my magazines in a bunker of flesh, we had the same idea with the gorge but it would have made him boring.
It looks like a beast so it should behave like one. Bone-Shield as option to upgrade makes more sense, but the haunting, all destructing image of the Onos striking like a meteor should trigger fear and movement in the marines.
Comments
Love it. Promotes smart gameplay and gives the Onos the unique ability to engage Exos in tight corridors without getting massacred.
Also presents a trade-off when retreating - Do you about-turn and expose your rear in exchange for more speed, or do you slowly back-peddle to safety?
<b>Do:</b>
Give it the bone shield. That means invincible at the front (beside the parts on its legs without bones). Why not damage reduction? Because it is highly unintuitive. Making him invul on the front bones, makes it possible to add effects like bullets bouncing of, that scream at every noob: "Invul on the bone plates!"
But invul sounds op? No! It just introduces skill to the onos. You can't just run into a room and try to hit as many marines. You need to think about your positioning. Also the health and armor of the onos has to be decreased. 3 Marines should be enough to circle an onos so two can attack him from behind / the sides. Now you finally got an alien that has an useful and unique job and requires skill to be successful with.
Just imagine an onos sitting in a doorway and looking at you... Just looking at you. You can't damage it without GLs or Flamers or flanking. And it sits there and watches you.
<b>Don't:</b>
Don't ever increase the health/armor of the onos. That only leads to uselessness of LMGs.
Don't ever increase movement speed of the onos. Marines should always have the option to run away from it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+9000.
I like that idea but it has some hilarious potential for griefing if the aliens can push marines back to their only cc before they can get grenades or flamethrowers.
Problems I see with the proposal are:
1) Onos will suck even more against jetpacks since they will just fly over the bone shield.
2) Onos will become extremely powerful from the front. Stomp and boneplate will result in most people never turning around.
3) Onos will end up shielding his team in corridors, and probably charging in less. Holding outside of open areas, preventing marines from advancing. Perhaps not as dramatic as UWE imagine.
4) Early game onos will be fine if they nerf onos armour a bit. Marines can just flank it when he is in their base.
Invulnerability is really a big no-no imo for shooters at any point in time. Perhaps significantly less damage taken frontally only while charging could help, but it will not solve the problem. Best idea I seen is a small HP/AP boost, but this would only work if the onos eggs could only be dropped on 3 hive as to avoid problems with early/mid game marines being unable to take down onos because of lacking upgrades.
The onos is by no means totally useless, it's just atm he dies a tad too quickly. Nothing drastic needs to be done imo... he could use a hive2 ability though (what was that attack in ns1 where the onos used his head-tentacles? :P).
Means when your armour is down, you are weak from all directions since damage types only affect how armour is treated. You cannot stand forever facing forward, but against endgame tech which deals medium and heavy damage you have a large benefit.
Thoughts?
Means when your armour is down, you are weak from all directions since damage types only affect how armour is treated. You cannot stand forever facing forward, but against endgame tech which deals medium and heavy damage you have a large benefit.
Thoughts?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--coloro:#9ACD32--><span style="color:#9ACD32"><!--/coloro-->That sounds better than anything else here.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
So shooting an onos from the front, accounting for light damage conversion and hide armor it would take 430 lvl3 LMG bullets to kill one (that's 9 mags). 19 shotgun shots for a lvl3 shotty. It would take the onos back to being a single unit that takes an entire team to kill. That's too drastic imo. It's also somewhat unintuitive because there is absolutely no positionally dynamic damage anywhere in NS2 atm.
I like most of these ideas but invulnerability is a bit too much, just have the boneshield reduce damage.
Imagine many of the small corridors on Mineshaft and Summit, with invulnerability the onos would be completely unstoppable.
<!--quoteo(post=1970597:date=Sep 4 2012, 12:17 AM:name=TimMc)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TimMc @ Sep 4 2012, 12:17 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970597"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How about all damage received from the front, becomes light damage?
Means when your armour is down, you are weak from all directions since damage types only affect how armour is treated. You cannot stand forever facing forward, but against endgame tech which deals medium and heavy damage you have a large benefit.
Thoughts?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's gonna need tweaking but good overall.
Means when your armour is down, you are weak from all directions since damage types only affect how armour is treated. You cannot stand forever facing forward, but against endgame tech which deals medium and heavy damage you have a large benefit.
Thoughts?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nice, I like it!
Also, we could make bone shield an ability that uses energy, kind of like Onos charge right now. That could be the 2nd hive ability - when activated, bone shield converts frontal damage to energy loss instead. This way we could get some level of invulnerability without it being infinite, and would prevent the stomp + shield spam. During the bone shield ability use, players would move and turn much more slowly, so you would have to make a risky commitment and hope that you don't get flanked by too many marines.
Oh and don't restrict movement, else you turn the onos into a defensive unit by force instead of allowing the player to choose what is needed, like being able to push into a turtle with bone plate offensively etc.
It'd work.
Gore @ tier 1.
Bone plate @ tier 2.
Stomp @ tier 3.
<!--quoteo(post=1970616:date=Sep 3 2012, 11:35 PM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Sep 3 2012, 11:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1970616"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Light damage from the front might as well be invulnerability... it would make the onos have 3000 effective HP from the front.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And that's exactly where he needs to be.
The bone plate acts as either flat 8-10 dmg decrease or decreases the incoming dmg lvl for 1 class. That way it would make exo do normal damage only and onos could get focused pretty fast by an organised team. But that's only from front. Of course the flamer\explosives are still same dmg. 2nd thing is if railguns are ever introduced they can be hard counter to bone plate. Make it act as super high dmg, 175 flat with no bonus from upgrades, 3-5 seconds cooldown between shots.
1v1 onos should be able to take on any solo marine (except maybe exo/jp)
Oh and don't restrict movement, else you turn the onos into a defensive unit by force instead of allowing the player to choose what is needed, like being able to push into a turtle with bone plate offensively etc.
It'd work.
Gore @ tier 1.
Bone plate @ tier 2.
Stomp @ tier 3.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Its a possibility, but I thought onos was getting primal scream?
So shooting an onos from the front, accounting for light damage conversion and hide armor it would take 430 lvl3 LMG bullets to kill one (that's 9 mags). 19 shotgun shots for a lvl3 shotty. It would take the onos back to being a single unit that takes an entire team to kill. That's too drastic imo. It's also somewhat unintuitive because there is absolutely no positionally dynamic damage anywhere in NS2 atm.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But how long would he last against a dual exo suit?
Do agree it sounds overpowered when you look at the numbers...but exo's can solo 2 onos' (though is pretty screwed and in need of repair) without any help.
Comparing onos to LMG is wrong though...it needs to be compared to the miniguns.
Any news on this? I've been gone for a while and I was thinking maybe it got axed.
Stomp should do something against exos. Not a knock down, but it should disrupts exos a bit....with a small HUD shake (nothing crazy) and stopping the spin on the miniguns so the exos have to restart the spin. It gives the onos a second or two to get in some hits. It wouldn't disrupt the claw punch, so there is at least some reason to take the single mini gun...the single mg could use some honest utility over the twin mg to justify taking it when both are available. Charge really needs to be made un-boring-ified (easing up on the movement restriction was a good start). Charging could apply some sort of bonus to your next attack...either extra damage or some effect (maybe it already does this??)
But yea its ridiculous how much of a hard counter the exo is to the onos atm. I'm all for counters, but not like this.
Perhaps make bone plate on the front of the onos immune to LMG and shotgun fire but take reduced damage from miniguns and grenade launchers. The onos will still be soft and squishy from the sides and the back.
Fighting an onos is no longer a simple matter of focusing fire at a large target, you will actually have to worry about positioning and flanking in order to take it down.
If invul on front really leads to griefing or an op onos, than the solution are some tiny spots (like the front legs) where you can hit it no matter what. Its better than an unintuitive damage reduction. AND you have to aim better to do damage from the front.
PLUS: We can get rid of the unintuitive hide armor.
Even an early onos drop by the com isn't such a danger anymore. Because LMG with LvL0 has a chance against an onos without hide armor.
No bone plate on upper front legs:
<img src="http://video.supercheats.com/videos/natural-selection-2/Onos_Reveal_1280x720/Onos_Reveal_1280x720.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
anyway, i don't like the idea of changing damage types on the bone shield as this introduces another hidden mechanic people will not figure out for a long time just by playing. and instead of damage reduction, how about having an umbra-like effect which repels every second bullet?
What happened to charge? Imho that would be the stomp of movement, knocking away marines and hitting the main target like an exo with such a force that it has to shut down for a short period of time, making way for skulks to munch it away.
There's no drama and action in emptying my magazines in a bunker of flesh, we had the same idea with the gorge but it would have made him boring.
It looks like a beast so it should behave like one. Bone-Shield as option to upgrade makes more sense, but the haunting, all destructing image of the Onos striking like a meteor should trigger fear and movement in the marines.