Why are the alien ability upgrades linear?
meatmachine
South England Join Date: 2013-01-06 Member: 177858Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
South England Join Date: 2013-01-06 Member: 177858Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
I know we're still awaiting the arrival of a bunch more alien abilities, so it might be the case that this will change in the future anyway, however...
It seems like strategically games could be much more diverse if the number of hives determined how many abilities were available at once, rather than which specific abilities are available.
To be super clear, E.G. currently with Lerk it's 2 hives - Spore, 3 Hives - Spore and Umbra.
Why not 2 hives - Spore OR umbra, 3 hives - spore and umbra?
I would imagine various numbers would need adjusting so current 3rd hive abilities aren't OP when researched on 2 hives (ignoring the fact most 3rd hive abilities are just fluff at the moment anyway) but it seems like this is a fairly basic element of strategy/metagame-ness that would make this game much more interesting, not just to play but also to watch (esports woo!).
Please, enlighten me!
It seems like strategically games could be much more diverse if the number of hives determined how many abilities were available at once, rather than which specific abilities are available.
To be super clear, E.G. currently with Lerk it's 2 hives - Spore, 3 Hives - Spore and Umbra.
Why not 2 hives - Spore OR umbra, 3 hives - spore and umbra?
I would imagine various numbers would need adjusting so current 3rd hive abilities aren't OP when researched on 2 hives (ignoring the fact most 3rd hive abilities are just fluff at the moment anyway) but it seems like this is a fairly basic element of strategy/metagame-ness that would make this game much more interesting, not just to play but also to watch (esports woo!).
Please, enlighten me!
Comments
This.
Much like in the NS1 days when the alien build order was seen as sacrosanct; it had to be Defense->Movement->Sensory, there would be a perceived order and any straying from it would be "lol eject n00b khamm".
Granted, this is a player problem and not a game problem.
1) abilities need to be balanced so that neither is OP when researched first. Also, so that both are nearly equally viable.
2) though the abilities need to be level with each other, they need to stack in such a way that 3 hive aliens are stronger than 2 hive aliens. it is possible that without a linear scale up between abilities, 3 hive aliens wouldn't be stronger than at 2 hives. Just a different flavor of the same strength they had at 2 hives.
Still, I think this could have great potential. An example of how this could go:
Rush for 2 hives, a shift, and xeno. Laugh maniacally as marines scamble for armor upgrades.
One way to do that is to have 2-hive and 3-hive versions of each ability, so that when the third hive is built, all the existing abilities get a modest buff.
It could be very simple and mechanical so as to not substantially increase the complexity of the game. A five or ten percent increase in duration or decrease in cooldown or whatever, say, without otherwise changing the way the ability works.
Yeah that's pretty much how I'd envision it- you could even do it as simply as having any ability costs more energy/does less damage when researched as 2nd hive rather than 3rd, obviously there are problems with doing it like that but that's how simple it COULD be, just as a starting point.
It would even make vortex in its CURRENT state a viable skill to research!
Please elaborate, I'm genuinely curious as to where you could take it
More like, "some noob gorge has built the sensory chamber!".
Skulk - Leap or Xeno
Lerk - Spores or Umbra
Fade - blink or vortex.
I actually think these are fairly balanced, umbra is good but serves a different purpose. The only variance I think at most you could make the 2nd hive research be bombed like spores at present...and 3rd hive ranged like umbra is.
This would mean umbra early game would require the lerk to get into dangerous places to use effectively.
I agree with others that this will greatly increase the tech path options, create a bit of diversity in game play.
Its an interesting idea at the very least, I guess similar to researching jp's or exo's.
They're way too squishy without it.
The kharaa, equipped with this super-bacteria-genes have the best basis to get themselves suited up for any situation. If the situation lasts, i shall get better at suiting up. So I should have endless possibilities for my first choice of evolution, but the choices should get narrower the deeper i get into an upgrade.
Hives should be the catalysator for me, to unlock even deeper levels of an upgrade kind, but not the upgrade itself.
I'm born as skulk, and I want to be sneaky, i may evolve silence, without the need of a shade around. Of course that shouldn't mean i can do what i want. But if we place a shift, and i get celerity, i get a boost to my evolution. So i have the choice to go for my wanted upgrade in it's basic simple form, or I choose the hive-way and get a boosted shift form that grants me additional skill.
This would be the survival of the fittest in upgrades. You should have a choice, but going with the hive/team mind greatly enhances you of course. That's the same philosophy that gorges had in NS1. You had the choice to get gorge, but you hadnt to. If you got gorge you boosted your whole team and you were a significant role to the game.
I think he was simply picking up the fact there was no khamm to eject....which he beat me to doing
This would allow the player to choose at gestation, what weapons he want. The kham only chooses how many weapons a specific lifeform has. Would really increase the tactical possibilities and freedom of players, without cutting into the options of anyone.
But some balance tweaks would sure be needed.
The third hive abilities are pretty meh. Stomp makes onos even more powerful but they don't really need it to be effective at end game. Xeno and vortex are useless. The only good one is umbra, but getting umbra mid game whoo boy would that screw marines over.
Or perhaps its only half as effective, scale it to the number of hives (max 3 unless veil changes) or research levels weapons upgrades.
Stomp was a problem at only 2 hives, though if its range was decreased and the stun time shortened it might work. Cutting the stun time and distance to say 25% on one hive, maybe 33-50% on 2 and current on 3.
This could also work for blink and limit fades on 1 hive to having a max blink time of 1-2 seconds so its only slightly better than shadow stepping.
Similar to what we had in beta at one point but scales up.
*All abilities available for research at 1 hive in Tier 1 versions
*To unlock Tier 2 you need 2 hives
*To unlock Tier 3 you need 3 hives
This solves some problems with the game currently
* Aliens no longer become impotent at 1 hive
* Aliens now scale, Tier 3 abilities would be more powerful than they are now, meaning games will end faster and giving a huge insentive for marines to not allow 3 hives (same as was in NS1)
* Marines will see a real impact of destroying a hive because you knock aliens down a Tier. Ive been in losing games where we managed to ninja a hive .... yet we couldnt do anything after that as aliens still had their abilities until they die (namely spores and bilebomb). With this i would imagine that after a ninja hive takedown, all aliens will lose Tier 2 and be back on Tier 1 abilities which would at least give marines some breathing room to take back some map control until aliens rebuild their 2nd hive.