Gorges, the function and scaling they have.
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Join Date: 2012-11-21 Member: 172766Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-11-21 Member: 172766Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">Starts good, then worse, then weird.</div><b>The problem</b>
Gorges currently feel like a commitment that seems to have a great start, but doesn't scale or feel plausible the further you get into the game.
Gorges feel like they should be a commitment of sorts for the entire game where spending pres on personal build-able stuff is a must.
At first the clot / hydra blocking of a hallway seems like a pretty good deal, having a skulk or maybe even two to cover your ass, spending that 10 pres on the gorge then 16 pres clots and hydra's already feels like a worthwhile commitment, And it's great. you can hold two, maybe three marines without an armory to back up their ammo costs / health drops from the skulk/hydra hits. and it keeps them busy on that side of the map rather than take stuff.
Gorges also are helpful early on to catch up on that 'advantage' marines have by building an extractor in 3 seconds, as opposed to the 20/25 seconds it takes a harverster to build on its own.
But then it slowly scales into mid game, marines get shotguns / grenade launchers, and your walls / hydra's are pretty much gone to ######. Your function during this is not-fun. you're either healing lerks and fades, or wasting more pres on clots / hydra's but when they pull out, and the 2/3 marines that push out are just gonna grab you, i'm not even going to try and run, the mobility of a gorge, despite the very funny and well thought out bellyslide, is simply not enough to make you glide to freedom.
So then you want to try switching from spending the 30+ res on a class, perhaps even more for early game, Which can not get you a fade or onos on par with the other lifeforms on your team.
You're forced to either stay gorge or skulk around until you have enough pres to get a higher lifeform.
<b>Possible viabilities?</b>
I've tried bilebomb rushing, which is only really usefull if you have adrenaline and camo. Which would be a seriously retarded choice to pick up as an alien commander.
But it is effective, You just run up to one of the marine bases stealthly, don't let marines run ontop of you, and wait by listening until a base is moderately clear, then you either target the power or observatory to try and disable their base.
I've had some pretty good runs,and it's pretty much worth the 10 pres you spend. destroying as much as you can.
The other thing i've noticed that helped during this 'mid-game crisis' is being a distraction aka 'battle gorging' running with two skuls where you just keep heal spraying and dodging.
Most marines get lost on what they need to kill and before they've thought up a viable solution they're dead.
<b>And then comes lategame.</b>
Where your job, is like a team fortress 2's medic's job is to heal the heavy (onos) whilst trying to drop off some bile bombs if you have the energy. Now this is a pretty viable tactic.
The other thing you can do if there aren't any onoses around is trying to keep the forward bases 'up and running'.
<b>My proposition?</b>
Rework the building mechanic of gorges, where it slowly scales up into lategame by things like second hive, or third hive, or perhaps evolutions.
<i>Idea 1:</i>
Make the only 2 building a gorge can place the clot, and a substitute for hydra called for now a 'catalyst' which is a round shaped alien 'nest' that you can fill with all sorts of stuff that activate it, Where the gorge will then need to build it to it's fully grown state, and serve different functions.
This would require some reworking on the gorge's skill set, specifically bile bombs, which should do less damage in my opinion.
For example;
A gorge can spit in it, making it a hydra.
A skulk can bite it, making it a bear-claw trap, slowing or immobilizing marines for 2 seconds or something.
A skulk can parasite it, turning it into a small mine that shoots 3 parasites in random directions once triggered.
This slowly turns into a mechanic that can scale into late game depending on the upgrades you get for other lifeforms.
For example lerk gas (hive 2) will make a gas mine.
Or lerk umbra (hive 3) which makes a fleshy blob that constantly puffs out a small misty cloud of umbra to cover buildings / aliens with that pass through it.
The following things i thought would be applicable, as a more worked out functionality. (doesn't mean all should be included or considered)
Gorge spit - normal hydra.
Gorge bilebomb - bile mine.
Gorge healwave - small healing station. (1/4 the effectiveness of a crag, more once matured)
Lerk gas - gas mine
Lerk umbra - Umbra dispenser (small AOE, bigger once matured.)
Lerk spike - Burst fire hydra
Fade vortex - not sure yet. (cloak station?)
Onos stomp - not sure yet.
These 'traps' are always visible of course, making the early on placement of 'traps' not as viable until you get cloak.
Early on it would give the gorge something to place down behind his wall should marines hop over it.
<i>Idea 2:</i>
More buildings that 'scale' with the evolutions currently unlocked. Which could all either have unique functions, or functions similair to crags / shades / shifts but a more dimmed down smaller AOE version. Not sure what things like silence / celerity / carapace should do then though. But this kind of 'scaling' mechanic should not be ignored, it could be viable.
<i>Idea 3:</i>
More buildings that 'scale' with the amount of hives.
With this idea i also had in mind a system where you can use bile bombs from the start of the game, and the upgrades for the gorge would be the buildings.
Bile bombs rather than being a projectile, would be spawnable blobs that you can roll around. Lerks and fades can grab these and drop them on buildings / stuff they want to damage siege damage.
They would cost a lot more energy to puff out than the bile bombs now (or perhaps pres?) and do quite a bit more damage. if they get used by lerks / fades.
A gorge could also try roll them down from higher grounds to make them 'splat' on buildings and do their damage.
There's a lot of applications for this, And it would most certainly remove the mid-game turmoil gorges have.
Gorges currently feel like a commitment that seems to have a great start, but doesn't scale or feel plausible the further you get into the game.
Gorges feel like they should be a commitment of sorts for the entire game where spending pres on personal build-able stuff is a must.
At first the clot / hydra blocking of a hallway seems like a pretty good deal, having a skulk or maybe even two to cover your ass, spending that 10 pres on the gorge then 16 pres clots and hydra's already feels like a worthwhile commitment, And it's great. you can hold two, maybe three marines without an armory to back up their ammo costs / health drops from the skulk/hydra hits. and it keeps them busy on that side of the map rather than take stuff.
Gorges also are helpful early on to catch up on that 'advantage' marines have by building an extractor in 3 seconds, as opposed to the 20/25 seconds it takes a harverster to build on its own.
But then it slowly scales into mid game, marines get shotguns / grenade launchers, and your walls / hydra's are pretty much gone to ######. Your function during this is not-fun. you're either healing lerks and fades, or wasting more pres on clots / hydra's but when they pull out, and the 2/3 marines that push out are just gonna grab you, i'm not even going to try and run, the mobility of a gorge, despite the very funny and well thought out bellyslide, is simply not enough to make you glide to freedom.
So then you want to try switching from spending the 30+ res on a class, perhaps even more for early game, Which can not get you a fade or onos on par with the other lifeforms on your team.
You're forced to either stay gorge or skulk around until you have enough pres to get a higher lifeform.
<b>Possible viabilities?</b>
I've tried bilebomb rushing, which is only really usefull if you have adrenaline and camo. Which would be a seriously retarded choice to pick up as an alien commander.
But it is effective, You just run up to one of the marine bases stealthly, don't let marines run ontop of you, and wait by listening until a base is moderately clear, then you either target the power or observatory to try and disable their base.
I've had some pretty good runs,and it's pretty much worth the 10 pres you spend. destroying as much as you can.
The other thing i've noticed that helped during this 'mid-game crisis' is being a distraction aka 'battle gorging' running with two skuls where you just keep heal spraying and dodging.
Most marines get lost on what they need to kill and before they've thought up a viable solution they're dead.
<b>And then comes lategame.</b>
Where your job, is like a team fortress 2's medic's job is to heal the heavy (onos) whilst trying to drop off some bile bombs if you have the energy. Now this is a pretty viable tactic.
The other thing you can do if there aren't any onoses around is trying to keep the forward bases 'up and running'.
<b>My proposition?</b>
Rework the building mechanic of gorges, where it slowly scales up into lategame by things like second hive, or third hive, or perhaps evolutions.
<i>Idea 1:</i>
Make the only 2 building a gorge can place the clot, and a substitute for hydra called for now a 'catalyst' which is a round shaped alien 'nest' that you can fill with all sorts of stuff that activate it, Where the gorge will then need to build it to it's fully grown state, and serve different functions.
This would require some reworking on the gorge's skill set, specifically bile bombs, which should do less damage in my opinion.
For example;
A gorge can spit in it, making it a hydra.
A skulk can bite it, making it a bear-claw trap, slowing or immobilizing marines for 2 seconds or something.
A skulk can parasite it, turning it into a small mine that shoots 3 parasites in random directions once triggered.
This slowly turns into a mechanic that can scale into late game depending on the upgrades you get for other lifeforms.
For example lerk gas (hive 2) will make a gas mine.
Or lerk umbra (hive 3) which makes a fleshy blob that constantly puffs out a small misty cloud of umbra to cover buildings / aliens with that pass through it.
The following things i thought would be applicable, as a more worked out functionality. (doesn't mean all should be included or considered)
Gorge spit - normal hydra.
Gorge bilebomb - bile mine.
Gorge healwave - small healing station. (1/4 the effectiveness of a crag, more once matured)
Lerk gas - gas mine
Lerk umbra - Umbra dispenser (small AOE, bigger once matured.)
Lerk spike - Burst fire hydra
Fade vortex - not sure yet. (cloak station?)
Onos stomp - not sure yet.
These 'traps' are always visible of course, making the early on placement of 'traps' not as viable until you get cloak.
Early on it would give the gorge something to place down behind his wall should marines hop over it.
<i>Idea 2:</i>
More buildings that 'scale' with the evolutions currently unlocked. Which could all either have unique functions, or functions similair to crags / shades / shifts but a more dimmed down smaller AOE version. Not sure what things like silence / celerity / carapace should do then though. But this kind of 'scaling' mechanic should not be ignored, it could be viable.
<i>Idea 3:</i>
More buildings that 'scale' with the amount of hives.
With this idea i also had in mind a system where you can use bile bombs from the start of the game, and the upgrades for the gorge would be the buildings.
Bile bombs rather than being a projectile, would be spawnable blobs that you can roll around. Lerks and fades can grab these and drop them on buildings / stuff they want to damage siege damage.
They would cost a lot more energy to puff out than the bile bombs now (or perhaps pres?) and do quite a bit more damage. if they get used by lerks / fades.
A gorge could also try roll them down from higher grounds to make them 'splat' on buildings and do their damage.
There's a lot of applications for this, And it would most certainly remove the mid-game turmoil gorges have.
Comments
I offered the idea of more or stronger hydras as you get more hives to give them a scaling effect. Didn't really go anywhere. I'd like to see them benefit from hive upgrades.
Crag hive gives them more health and armor, shift hive gives them faster rate of fire and faster projectiles, and shade hive gives them cloaking, silence, and a parasite effect.
<b>Early game</b>: Either by supporting front line skulks, being aggressive and blocking off key areas with your clo<b>g</b>s and hydras or healing the RTS/early hive
<b>Mid game</b>: Supporting lerks and fades and utilizing bile bomb effectively in areas that are vulnerable. Then using it on a tech point location when your team is pushing. By far my favorite time as gorge. Sooo many things to do.
<b>
late game</b>: supporting fades/onos and then bile bombing the final base.
In say 24 player servers its roll becomes diminished severely.
<b>Early game</b>: pretty much the same as before except if you intend to be aggressive and block off areas you MUST go with at least 1 other gorge or you are just wasting res. Too many players to fend off.
<b>
Mid game</b>: What was previously the most exciting time as gorge has become insanely boring and frustrating. Too many players on the field to be sneaky in any way other then killing occasional RTS. You basically get the job of being only a medic and hope your team has the power to push into a marine tech point on their own because if you lead the way (which i often do in 16 player servers and survive) you will die in a 24 player server because those tech points are rarely empty.
<b>Late game</b>: Same as mid game except there is no RTS to kill.
I also agree gorges should be able to build structures again. Any thing the comm can build I should be able to build.
I do agree the gorge enters a bad place midgame though. Endgame and earlygame its great.
Not a fan of healing onos, once you get low on energy it's basically like the gorge has an asthma attack and even healing an onos up after a battle is over can be pretty annoying. But on the other hand if you get the comm to drop a shift then it's find and I certainly think the comm needs to count more on alien side. I also hate that onos trip over gorges, it really sucks to block an onos and get him killed. Not sure if much can or should be done about that, it can be comical, I watched an onos run on top of a lerk as they both tried to run away and it was quite a good show. But wasn't happy when he blamed it on me and started yelling at me after he died (he had no idea what he was tripping over). Trying to heal onos and bile can be a pain in the butt, which makes sense just gets old when as a gorge i want to go in and bile but the onos decides I should be glued to his butt.
Hydras and clogs are what I really hope get worked on, I like the idea of variance, being able to evolve them depending on what upgrades you have. Maybe have clogs evolvable, that they do their 'ability' when you get near them. Or they morf a little bit depending on what you do. If you step on one it puts a lil acid on you, or maybe sprays up spores. I like the idea of this whole line of thinking. I'm not sure how the devs feel about being able to protect areas without anyone being there. Might be why hydras are so sad right now, they aren't supposed to be anything great without someone around them. If that's the case maybe make it so these new buildings only go off when you breath on them or spit at them. Like you set them off yourself. Maybe you have to choose what to evolve your clogs to, so you only get one kind, not a bunch of different kinds.
I would love giving the gorge some variation and a lot of the posted ideas sound interesting, but as said above the focus is elsewhere right now.
Yes, the Gorge needs more toys, and I like the idea of a building that can change its role based on what primes it. Personally, I'd like to see hydras get much better accuracy so they aren't completely negated by a little dancing. Step to the left, then step to the right! The hydras go down 'cause you're a dancing man tonight!
If hydras could actually hit something, their damage may be noticed for once.