Gorge Quality of Life Changes

Robo · October 2012

I have a lot of ideas but I really want to work on and flesh out one at a time, here as follows are my suggestions for gorge modifications.

Spit: Charge up attack (Similar to the "Huntsman" from TF2). The longer you charge your attack the more power and velocity it has. Spit should also be available while sliding!

Spit
-Function: Inflicts damage on targeted player or building at range increasing in power the longer you charge; attack distorts enemy player vision temporarily and propels you away from your target while sliding!
-Damage: 40+(10 per 0.5 seconds)
-Max Damage: 100
-Damage Type: Normal
-Projectile Speed: 40+(10 per 0.5 seconds) *not sure how fast 100 projectile speed is
-Max Projectile Speed: 100 *should be fast but not instant like parasite
-Fire Delay: 0.5
-Energy Cost: 10+(5 per 0.5 seconds)
-Description: The Gorge's primary range attack, he can spit globs of acid over long distances in rapid succession or charge up for increased power.

<img src="http://i46.tinypic.com/1ya339.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />
*quick concept of gorge charging up and sliding backwards from firing.

Slide: Cool down should start once you start sliding and not once you finish sliding, so you can jump over obstacles and continue sliding. Spit charging and firing should also be available while sliding.
*charged up spit increases speed and propels you in the opposite direction of your target

Devour: The Gorge is able to swallow up his hydras and other structures and belch them back out later at no additional cost.

Build Muwf: The Muwf is a new gorge belch able organism. Once fully grown the Muwf will spread out its many tendrils and soak up heal spray until the tendrils are fully illuminated. When damaged alien life forms pass through the Muwf the tendrils release that stored spray directly into the life form with its nematocysts instantly healing and energizing the alien.

Newborn Muwf
-Health: 400
-Armor: 25
-Cost: 5 Personal Resources
-Build Time: 10 seconds
-Build From: Gorge
-Limit Per Gorge: 1

Mature Muwf
-Health: 650
-Armor: 75

Abilities
Sense Threat
-Description: The Muwf can passively sense enemy presence; when threatened the Muwf retracts into itself hiding and shielding itself from enemies.
Nematocysts 
-Function: Heals and energizes damaged aliens.
-Heal: 125
-Heal Type: Instant

<img src="http://i46.tinypic.com/35a6ck6.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
*quick concept of the Muwf illuminated.

Gorge Build Glog: The Glog is a new gorge belch able obstruction that is gained from selecting particular evolution upgrades or as an added build able. Made from gelatinous bile the Glog is capable of slowing down any non kharaa organisms that come into contact with it

Glog
-Health: 75
-Armor: 0
-Build Time: instant
-Build From: Gorge
-Limit Per Gorge: 5

Abilities
Gelatinous
-Description: Glogs are gelatinous masses of bile and can only be removed by sweeping the area of infestation or utilizing a flamethrower or grenade launcher.
Super Sticky
-Slow: 35%
-Duration: 3 seconds

<img src="http://i48.tinypic.com/23r0sva.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
*quick concept of the Glog

Evolutions: These evolution upgrades would now not only provide their current benefits but would also modify the gorges abilities and attacks! I think these evolution upgrades could also provide unique and interesting modifications to other life forms to make evolution upgrades more appealing to different play styles.

Crag
-Carapace: Increases armor and allows the gorge to bowl over marines with a high speed slide (Short duration knockdown effect, requires 8 speed or higher while sliding).
*Gives the gorge visually more bone carapace.
-Regeneration: Increases passive regeneration and grants Heal Spray an additional effect that gives a bonus 4 hp and .5% max hp every second for 3 seconds.
*The gorge now exudes bacteria around him in a mist like cloud.

Shade
-Camouflage: Allows you to become invisible while standing still and also grants camouflage to your hydra's.
-Silence: Clogs become Glogs, they are made of a gelatinous goo and are super sticky they will slow hostile units when they come into contact with the glog.
*Clogs change their art to Glogs

Shift
-Celerity: TBD
-Adrenaline: Increases maximum energy and allows the gorge to supercharge his spit attack up to 4 seconds.
*The gorge gains mutated adrenal glands around his neck.

Alien Vision: Alien vision is now affected by flamethrowers, when your life form is burning you are blinded while you have alien vision enabled (disabling alien vision clears your sight).

Please post criticism and concerns. *I will continue to update this post.

Imbalanxd · October 2012

I can't tell what UWE want to do with the Gorge. Is it supposed to be able to deal a lot of damage to a marine? Is it meant to be able to get away from a marine reliably if he runs into one in a dark corridor? I think people over emphasize the combat part of combat engineer. A combat engineer doesn't have to be fighting tooth and nail with the rest of the team.

Maybe you're not meant to be able to hold your own against a marine, and in return, you are given the ability to hold your own against multiple marines, in the right situation.

Xarius · October 2012

Quit making excuses, he's neither combat nor engineer at this point, and it's quite frankly appalling to see the gorge in such a state. I don't really have any hopes that this will be addressed before 1.0 though. Oh boy are new players going to love this class!

Vladimir Van Vodka · October 2012

I wish they'd think of trying something similar to how the medic in TF2's combat works.
His main projectile weapon, the Syringe Gun, seems better designed then the gorge spit:

Yes, they are similar, however;

The Needles fired deal less damage.
The Needles are slower velocity projectiles.
the Needles lob and have a powerful arc.
the Syringe Gun is not accurate beyond mid range.

sounds horrible... right?

The Syringe Gun has a quick rate of fire.

The main reason for this, is because the syringe gun is designed to be an effective support or escape weapon, It has no outright combat proficiency, unless you are really good with it, it does require alot of tracking and precognition skill to hit anything, even with it's fast rate of fire.

The slow velocity, the slight inaccuracy and the arc are all nerfing factors that dissipate when you are backpedaling, and being chased.
This closes the gap between the syringe and the enemy far faster, making it a proficient escape weapon. This, coupled with it's inaccuracy and fast firing rate, make it great at sending a shower of hail from a distance to aid allies in combat, causing some DPS while you stay in relative safety, If, you can track and get the arc right.

But in direct CQC the weapon is piss hard to use, as the tracking field becomes far larger, and your spray is inexistant. You really need to be accurate in tracking a dodging foe just to deal minimal damage.
Once mastered the Syringe gun however, can be a lethal weapon, most people undervalue it's damage output.

Obviously the marines are not as fast paced as a scout from TF2, so the firing speed, projectile speed and damage would not need to be as prominent. This is, afterall, a different game... But the concept could be easily adopted with a few minor tweaks.

All this ramble to say that spit could be redesigned to fit a combat engineer/medic role far better then it's current implementation.
Could be some form of hose like vomit attack, or something.

Just for you guys who don't know what I'm talking aboot.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHKTujfLohg&hd=1" target="_blank">Syringe Gun Demonstration</a>
Look at how many meters to the left or right he needs to aim to hit a dodging scout, it's harder then it looks.
However, at mid range it gets easier because of the spread, but deals far less damage.

I think this coupled with a charge attack similar to your suggestion (albeit nerfed, as 100 damage is a butt-ton) something like the spit's current implementation (40 damage or so) would give the gorge long range capability at the cost of dps and ease of use. His spit attacks however, are still far inferior even to the marine's basic lmg, as they deal less DPS and on top of that require spacial precognitive tracking and anticipation as well as accuracy to be used effectively.

More skill then LMG, but possibly funner to use.

I expectorate more from the gorge in the future.

Robo · October 2012

The biggest problem I see with current spit is that it isn't fun and its incredibly difficult to hit with. The goal for the charge up isn't so much as damage (would be nice) but getting past that .5 second fire delay and the projectile speed. If you charge the attack for lets say 1 second, when you release your mouse button the projectile fires and it moves 50% faster.

TimMc · October 2012

I like all the OPs ideas.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Vladimir Van Vodka @ Oct 21 2012, 07:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1994436"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Just for you guys who don't know what I'm talking aboot.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHKTujfLohg&hd=1" target="_blank">Syringe Gun Demonstration</a>
Look at how many meters to the left or right he needs to aim to hit a dodging scout, it's harder then it looks.
However, at mid range it gets easier because of the spread, but deals far less damage.</div>

As you've shown though, TF2 combat is far more different. The medic is able to close distance to reduce the effect of the projectile, and often simply walking backwards will cause people to walk in a straight line towards you (meaning no need to account for the projectile speed).

The medic can also jump and move around far easier than a gorge.

I loved play medic in TF2, but a gorge doesn't feel anything like him (perhaps he should?). The gorge is mostly about never getting that close to a marine, because they will kill you almost instantly.

Gorge spit traditionally is for 'warding off' marines in long corridors, where you can pull back if taking too much damage. Its fine for this, but I would like to see the gorge get more utility and structures.

Xarius · October 2012

Third ability, webs, extra structure and either tankier or better offensive capability. Those changes would more than suffice to make the gorge a proper combat engineer.

AurOn2 · October 2012

Why do we even want the gorge to be a combat engineer in the first place? We all know the gorge is nowhere near either edges of the cake, so why are we pushing towards combat over engineer? It should be a friggen support unit. frack.

arnyboy87 · October 2012

OP has got some really gd ideas ,,, wouldn't mind someone looking into these :P

+1

Xarius · October 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Why do we even want the gorge to be a combat engineer in the first place? We all know the gorge is nowhere near either edges of the cake, so why are we pushing towards combat over engineer? It should be a friggen support unit. frack.</div> UWE wants him to be, I honestly wouldn't mind him being just a better support class. But currently he's not really much fun as a support either.

BootyTime · October 2012

I like the idea for the new gorge building. I think it would be very cool and they would have something more to do.

Robo · October 2012

I have been thinking about the possibility of adding buildings or extra abilities based on evolution choices and was wondering what others thought about it.

beyond.wudge · October 2012

I'm really enjoying the Gorge as it is right now. I enjoy the combat aspect and the building aspect. I hope to see both enlarged as time goes on.

I think the 'Combat Engineer' ideology has got to go. This game is far more suited to multi-role multi-aspect gameplay than the NS1 "I am a Gorge, all I do is heal and drop chambers."

People shouldn't get hung up about an idea that sounds more fun than it is in reality.

I honestly would love to see Marines be able to trade pistols or axes for building equipment like a Gorge and see much more player-driven base-making gameplay.

I also would love to see it if the Comm isn't in the chair that people can drop res towers to reduce the number of games let down by a late-into-the-chair comm or disconnecting comm.

Don't get me wrong, I love the comm. I just would like to see him more as a 'commander' and less as a 'production line director' who nothing in the game can happen without.

Robo · October 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>I'm really enjoying the Gorge as it is right now. I enjoy the combat aspect and the building aspect. I hope to see both enlarged as time goes on.</div>

I also enjoy the gorge immensely, however once enough game time elapses 8-10 minutes the gorge goes from fun to frustrating. It seems that your abilities become so flat that any synergy you had earlier is lost from the result of enemy tech. Even bile bomb, one of the best attacks in the game isn't a particularly fun ability to use because it overshadows other abilities, does not promote synergy and its primary target are structures (you go from interacting and creating the environment, healing friends and fighting others to healing friends and attacking structures).

Crumbling Ego · November 2012

+1
These are awesome.

Regn · November 2012

The Gorge was originally a builder. It was fun to strategize independently of where your team was at, setting up power bases for them to use as cover and heal up at. Now it makes walls that block your alien friends and the marines can destroy within seconds, and three hydras that hardly deal any damage to marines. The only time I ever play Gorge now is when we have an Onos that I can heal and I have no other option. Other than that, I leave it alone. The only fun classes to play is Lerk and Fade, but the Fade cost so much resources and is bound to be marked and hunted by every single marines with no means to escape that I just stick with Lerk which is much more mobile and have far more team-working abilities than the Gorge. Yeah, whenever I play Alien, unless we're being thoroughly owned by the marines, I'll have 100 resources and remain Lerk because I'll die as a Fade and an Onos x100 times faster than with Lerk, lol. It wouldn't surprise me if they nerfed Lerks.

PHJF · November 2012

I do miss gorging.... the quiet lifestyle, just cruisin around the map all casual-like droppin MCs and DCs and maybe an SC here or there... Peace and quiet, that's what a gorge needs. Let all those silly skulks run around biting things.

Gorge Quality of Life Changes

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