Upgrade Farms
Imbalanxd
Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104581Members
Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104581Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Potential to address many issues</div>This is a repost of a suggestion I made quite a while ago, but I feel like it could address a lot of the issues people see in the game currently. When I first made the suggestion, the game was a lot less fleshed out than it is now, and it wasn't really a suggestion which solved problems, but rather one that introduced aspects which I wanted to see. However, looking at the current gameplay issues, I can't help but think that this idea speaks to many of them.
So the idea is: upgrade farms. For those of you who haven't played it, in NS1, instead of a single shell or spur giving you the maximum level of carapace or celerity, the aliens would need to build up to 3 of the relevant structure in order to unlock progressively more powerful versions of the upgrades. This was an interesting concept, but what it ultimately resulted in was the alien team dropping all three of the required structure all at once, with level 1 or 2 of an upgrade almost never being seen.
The idea of upgrade farms expands on this somewhat, by removing the relatively low ceiling of 3, and replacing it with something higher, like 10 or so. <b>Level 10 carapace, are you insane?!</b> Well hold on a moment, it wouldn't work in quite the same way. While the cost of every shell would remain the same all the way up to 10, the armor contribution would decrease with each level. So, as an example, if the very first level of carapace increased a skulks effective health by 10%, the second level, while still costing the same, would only increase effective health by 9%. This would continue on to the 10th level, which would only increase effective health by 1%. Each upgrade structure would provide access to every upgrade in that tree, all at the same level of strength.
As stated, I feel this would address many issues plaguing the game currently, and here is how it would do it.
<ul><li><b>Aliens don't scale as well as marines</b>
This is quite a wide spread complaint, and this upgrade system would obviously address it directly. If the cost of a shell was increased to 20 tres (with the individual carapace/regen upgrade cost removed) getting the maximum level of 10 would require an investment of 200 tres, which I think we can all agree for aliens is a lot. This doesn't even take into account the required chambers for celerity or adrenaline upgrades. Furthermore, since the strength increase of each level decreases, the cost to benefit ratio does as well, meaning that at a certain level it becomes a tough choice of where to spend the resources. However, in this system the aliens can at least choose to become more resilient, just as the marines can. Not all marine commanders choose to get level 3 armor straight away, as it is a costly choice, but if it is required, it is available.
</li><li><b>Early onos rush</b>
The primary weakness of the early onos rush is that, in all likelihood, when the onos emerges he will have absolutely no upgrades, which leaves him substantially weaker than normal. However, by simply dropping a single shell and upgrading it to carapace, this is immediately solved, and for a relatively cheap cost. Additionally, this solution transfers to all lifeforms, meaning no tradeoff. If you look at the marine team, although a light marine remains highly effective with level 2 or even level 1 armour, an exo suit basically demands that the marine team has level 3 armour. In the same way, an Onos with level 2 or 3 carapace could simply be too fragile to be as dominant as it currently is, requiring at least level 5 or 6 carapace to be effective. However, due to the relative contribution of carapace, and the previously mentioned dropoff, such a high level of carapace would not be as effective for, say a skulk or a lerk. This then becomes a tradeoff between making the Onos stronger with carapace, or, for example, improving the skulks performance with a more fitting upgrade, such as celerity.
</li><li><b>Not enough choices for alien commander / too few structures used</b>
The choice wouldn't simply be what level of an upgrade to get, the choices would be complex. A commander would need to decide at what time he would get upgrades, or at what time he would increase the level of upgrades. He would need to decide which upgrades to go into. Does he get a very high level of one upgrade, while acquiring a much lower level in another? Does he go equally into both? Different upgrades would benefit different lifeforms, so he would need to decide where his teams primary strength was. He would also need to decide how to place his upgrade farms. Do you put them all in one place, making it a prime target, but a centralized one to defend? Do you spread them all out individually, making them easy targets, but preventing all upgrades from being lost simultaneously? This would also give the commander a use for resources in the late game, other than just constantly dropping lifeforms.</li></ul>
Here are some topics which need to be fleshed out in more detail
<ul><li> How high would the upgrades scale? Obviously we aren't going to have skulks running around 10x the current carapace. I think it would be acceptable if the maximum level of an upgrade was equal to 2x what it currently is. So if a skulk with carapace currently goes from 10 armor to 30, a skulk with level 10 carapace would have 50 armour.</li><li> How quickly would the upgrades stack up? At what point and cost would the upgrades become equal to their current state? I think it would be acceptable if level 2 was slightly less than what it currently is, while level 3 was slightly more. This would result in a somewhat increased investment to get the same thing, but in return you get scalability.(both these points relate directly to the skulk, scaling would need to be different for different lifeforms. An onos with 2x carapace is a nono)</li><li> Every upgrade would need to have a highly scalable form. This poses little problem for upgrades like carapace, adrenaline, regeneration or celerity. However, upgrades like silence and camouflage would require some thought.</li></ul>
So the idea is: upgrade farms. For those of you who haven't played it, in NS1, instead of a single shell or spur giving you the maximum level of carapace or celerity, the aliens would need to build up to 3 of the relevant structure in order to unlock progressively more powerful versions of the upgrades. This was an interesting concept, but what it ultimately resulted in was the alien team dropping all three of the required structure all at once, with level 1 or 2 of an upgrade almost never being seen.
The idea of upgrade farms expands on this somewhat, by removing the relatively low ceiling of 3, and replacing it with something higher, like 10 or so. <b>Level 10 carapace, are you insane?!</b> Well hold on a moment, it wouldn't work in quite the same way. While the cost of every shell would remain the same all the way up to 10, the armor contribution would decrease with each level. So, as an example, if the very first level of carapace increased a skulks effective health by 10%, the second level, while still costing the same, would only increase effective health by 9%. This would continue on to the 10th level, which would only increase effective health by 1%. Each upgrade structure would provide access to every upgrade in that tree, all at the same level of strength.
As stated, I feel this would address many issues plaguing the game currently, and here is how it would do it.
<ul><li><b>Aliens don't scale as well as marines</b>
This is quite a wide spread complaint, and this upgrade system would obviously address it directly. If the cost of a shell was increased to 20 tres (with the individual carapace/regen upgrade cost removed) getting the maximum level of 10 would require an investment of 200 tres, which I think we can all agree for aliens is a lot. This doesn't even take into account the required chambers for celerity or adrenaline upgrades. Furthermore, since the strength increase of each level decreases, the cost to benefit ratio does as well, meaning that at a certain level it becomes a tough choice of where to spend the resources. However, in this system the aliens can at least choose to become more resilient, just as the marines can. Not all marine commanders choose to get level 3 armor straight away, as it is a costly choice, but if it is required, it is available.
</li><li><b>Early onos rush</b>
The primary weakness of the early onos rush is that, in all likelihood, when the onos emerges he will have absolutely no upgrades, which leaves him substantially weaker than normal. However, by simply dropping a single shell and upgrading it to carapace, this is immediately solved, and for a relatively cheap cost. Additionally, this solution transfers to all lifeforms, meaning no tradeoff. If you look at the marine team, although a light marine remains highly effective with level 2 or even level 1 armour, an exo suit basically demands that the marine team has level 3 armour. In the same way, an Onos with level 2 or 3 carapace could simply be too fragile to be as dominant as it currently is, requiring at least level 5 or 6 carapace to be effective. However, due to the relative contribution of carapace, and the previously mentioned dropoff, such a high level of carapace would not be as effective for, say a skulk or a lerk. This then becomes a tradeoff between making the Onos stronger with carapace, or, for example, improving the skulks performance with a more fitting upgrade, such as celerity.
</li><li><b>Not enough choices for alien commander / too few structures used</b>
The choice wouldn't simply be what level of an upgrade to get, the choices would be complex. A commander would need to decide at what time he would get upgrades, or at what time he would increase the level of upgrades. He would need to decide which upgrades to go into. Does he get a very high level of one upgrade, while acquiring a much lower level in another? Does he go equally into both? Different upgrades would benefit different lifeforms, so he would need to decide where his teams primary strength was. He would also need to decide how to place his upgrade farms. Do you put them all in one place, making it a prime target, but a centralized one to defend? Do you spread them all out individually, making them easy targets, but preventing all upgrades from being lost simultaneously? This would also give the commander a use for resources in the late game, other than just constantly dropping lifeforms.</li></ul>
Here are some topics which need to be fleshed out in more detail
<ul><li> How high would the upgrades scale? Obviously we aren't going to have skulks running around 10x the current carapace. I think it would be acceptable if the maximum level of an upgrade was equal to 2x what it currently is. So if a skulk with carapace currently goes from 10 armor to 30, a skulk with level 10 carapace would have 50 armour.</li><li> How quickly would the upgrades stack up? At what point and cost would the upgrades become equal to their current state? I think it would be acceptable if level 2 was slightly less than what it currently is, while level 3 was slightly more. This would result in a somewhat increased investment to get the same thing, but in return you get scalability.(both these points relate directly to the skulk, scaling would need to be different for different lifeforms. An onos with 2x carapace is a nono)</li><li> Every upgrade would need to have a highly scalable form. This poses little problem for upgrades like carapace, adrenaline, regeneration or celerity. However, upgrades like silence and camouflage would require some thought.</li></ul>
Comments
Just make it consistent to where buying more and more chambers improves the effectiveness the same rate every time. Other than that, I don't mind this idea at all.
Just make it consistent to where buying more and more chambers improves the effectiveness the same rate every time. Other than that, I don't mind this idea at all.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The main problem with that is scaling. If it was decided that the level 10 equivelent of carapace should be equal to 2x the current carapace, then that would mean that, in order to get carapace on par with the current version, you would need to build 5 upgrade chambers. With the tres cost staying the same, this would be a massive nerf to aliens. Though I agree the hidden number aspect is bad.
also get serious, 10 buildings for 1 upgrade lol what the hell
That... already happens in game.
Well if you put them all (not saying 10, 10 was just an example) in one location, I think you would be pretty crazy to not defend it with at least 2 crags and 2 whips. A grenade launcher wouldn't do much against that, or at least not as quickly as 4 shots.