When is the bone shield for the onos coming?
_Necro_
Join Date: 2011-02-15 Member: 81895Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2011-02-15 Member: 81895Members, Reinforced - Shadow
This idea floats around since alpha and as far as I know, it originated by the devs. I think we really need it to balance the onos better than by tweaking its health. Also this mechanic makes the onos much more interesting and skill demanding than it is now.
What is Bone Shield?
The original idea was, that the onos is invulnerable on the bone parts of his front. (see pictures: red areas would be vulnerable) Crouching with the onos covers most of the vulnerable spots on its front legs, but also make him way slower. There will always be small spots on its upper legs, that remain vulnerable. So it can't be used to simply shut down a hallway. Also marines can circle the onos. This would demand more tactical positioning from the onos player and more aim from the marines.
It could be made intuitive by changing the particle effect while hitting the bone plate, from green blood to yellow sparks. The same you see, when shooting a wall.
Sure, the health of the onos needs to be tweaked with this feature. But it would finally introduce some skill in playing him.
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/ItWyW.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
What is Bone Shield?
The original idea was, that the onos is invulnerable on the bone parts of his front. (see pictures: red areas would be vulnerable) Crouching with the onos covers most of the vulnerable spots on its front legs, but also make him way slower. There will always be small spots on its upper legs, that remain vulnerable. So it can't be used to simply shut down a hallway. Also marines can circle the onos. This would demand more tactical positioning from the onos player and more aim from the marines.
It could be made intuitive by changing the particle effect while hitting the bone plate, from green blood to yellow sparks. The same you see, when shooting a wall.
Sure, the health of the onos needs to be tweaked with this feature. But it would finally introduce some skill in playing him.
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/ItWyW.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Comments
Also it wouldn't need to decrease the health this hard, that you can't flee anymore. This is only a balancing by numbers thing. Right now it takes no skill to shoot at an onos, you can't do much wrong. Also it doesn't need much skill to play onos. The only failure you can make, is staying to long in battle. Why not adding a mechanic that gives you more control? A mechanic that adds the demand of skill to both sides.
I disagree completely, you're missing the teamplay aspect behind the bone shield. While the Onos is blocking most of the incoming damage, the rest of the team creeps up behind the Onos and then spread out once they're in range. Perfect for a Gorge.
The Onos could also retreat slowly with the bone shield facing the marines, or try to get away normally, adding a cool risk/reward element.
Then the Marines could use grenade launchers, or jetpacks, or just clever tactics to damage an Onos from his vulnerable spot.
Definitely would like to see this feature though.
generally you'll want to either be running away from an onos to delay your death or firing non-stop to contribute enough damage for your team to take the onos down. this won't fundamentally change with the bone shield ability, so i very much doubt it's high on the patch agenda (if it's even there at all).
edit: also, what about the other alien lifeforms? <a href="http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/192292-/NS2_Fade_render-620x.jpg" target="_blank">http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/192292-/NS...render-620x.jpg</a> they all have 'bony' parts
Currently, apart from map awareness and strategic considerations about where to be (which is required by all lifeforms anyway), the Onos takes nearly no skill to play and increased skill has no effect on an Onos.
It would be nice to have something in the game to make the Onos more skill based, I just don't think this is it.
There is no issue with having that in NS2, although it will only boost the current onos. The major rework on the Onos has to be done before implementing it (hp\armor dmg\hit-range, etc). Also, that balancing has to be reflected on whole gameplay.
It is most likely that it will be much harder to script the separate front parts, but still doable.
Also it wouldn't need to decrease the health this hard, that you can't flee anymore. This is only a balancing by numbers thing. Right now it takes no skill to shoot at an onos, you can't do much wrong. Also it doesn't need much skill to play onos. The only failure you can make, is staying to long in battle. Why not adding a mechanic that gives you more control? A mechanic that adds the demand of skill to both sides.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
After giving it some more thought, I must confess it might be a good idea, as long as you get the balance right.
A while back it had 600/350 with a -6 damage reduction. Got a bit hard to balance so it was replaced with simply extra health.
Bone shield sounds neat but yea need to figure out how to handle the -only face front and can't retreat else die kamikaze- potential.
Also, hiding teammates behind the onos has limited use due to grenade launchers, and slow moving aliens are easy pickings. Right now the onos rushing into the middle of a bunch of marines causing chaos and absorbing their fire does more for the rest of the aliens then making them form a moving frontline that can be grenaded with ease.
It's just a matter of correcting his health to compensate. If you give him the kind of head-on toughness he's already needed, you could easily half his HP to create a lifeform that's great when positioned correctly but easily killed when surrounded.
All that really accomplishes though is to make him far more situational than he was before. I don't really see the benefit. In large rooms where he's easily surrounded he sucks, in corridors where he's always facing the marines he's overpowered.
Good. No one Lifeform should be the "good" one, any more than any one gun should be. All lifeforms need strengths and weaknesses that make them good in some situations and bad in others.
Onoses should always be good, it's not fun to have your lifeform hard-countered. That doesn't mean they should be able to carry the team by themselves, but that's very different than making it so they're only useful in certain types of rooms. All five lifeforms should always have a role on the team, there's no need to give them arbitrary weaknesses.
and tech is right, no one thing should be without a role or be the obvious choice.
imagine exos without their obvious drawbacks?
This was all covered in the high level design doc from charlie. "no one weapon or life form should be better than another" trade offs, variation, soft counters, roles - all encourage proper soft RPS mechanics and a varying game that requires coordination instead of mass life forms or the obvious choice. (hello 6 min onos)
I'm going to go out on a limb and say a fast, armory using dual exo would be worse, but that's just an opinion.
the tactic would be, you can crouch to become a shield (grenades bounce off, bullets ricochet off etc) But you it only activates from the front where you bones are, so that any marine(s) can still strafe around you, or fly above/behind you - and you'd have to give up your crouched position in order to turn to either block or attack them.
this would be great for shielding a hidden army of skulks behind you from an exo or turrets or even normal rines.
and it means that jetpacks would be a better counter to onos.
EDIT - also a crouching boneshielding onos, should take more damage from melee - so that those who dare can get up close with an Axe or Exo claw to attack from melee :)
and tech is right, no one thing should be without a role or be the obvious choice.
imagine exos without their obvious drawbacks?
This was all covered in the high level design doc from charlie. "no one weapon or life form should be better than another" trade offs, variation, soft counters, roles - all encourage proper soft RPS mechanics and a varying game that requires coordination instead of mass life forms or the obvious choice. (hello 6 min onos)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Locational damage wouldn't change anything about that, it just creates more black/white engagements that are either hopeless for the marines(not fun) or hopeless for the Onos(not fun) depending entirely on what room the fight happens to be in. It creates silly behavior like the Onos strafing/backpedaling all over the place and spinning to face every marine. It's not a factor you can strategize around in advance, so it doesn't affect lifeform variety at all, it just changes how the engagements play out.