As I have already said, I would like to see the early/late game advantage of upgrades more pronounced, but it is still there currently. Two examples:
(1) Regen vs. cara. Against low level weapons, especially against machine guns only, regen is by far superior. Against high level weapons and shotguns, cara is almost a necessity.
(2) Cele vs. adren. Against low tech marines, celerity can be better. Against high tech marines, especially if they have jetpacks, adren will be better.
All true, but that's due to happenstance rather than design. Regen is designed for quick hit-and-runs attacks that just also happens to be very useful against w0/1 assault rifle marines. If we want to make the upgrade system more attuned to countering tech levels, we should make upgrades to counter tech levels, not try to shoehorn existing upgrades into those roles. Here are some potential examples:
- Bullet Shield = Takes half damage from bullets (assault rifle, shotgun, minigun exo, sentry counter)
- Reactive Armor = Caps max single-instant damage taken to 50 (shotgun, GL, railgun exo counter)
- Hardening Shell = The damage taken by each additional shot is reduced by 10% (assault rifle, flamethrower, railgun exo, sentry counter)
- Reflective Skin = A percentage of your damage taken is reflected back to the attacker if in close proximity (all weapons, but mostly shotgun counter)
Another method is just to let the aliens choose upgrade buffs versus weapons/attacks directly. For example:
- Aliens can pick a 50% damage reduction for say 3 out of the 9 weapons/attacks (i.e. axe, pistol, rifle, shotgun, grenade launcher, flamethrower, minigun exo, railgun exo) or
- Aliens can distribute 150% in damage reduction across the 9 weapons/attacks they so choose though you might want to cap the max damage reduction to something like 75% to prevent people from making a weapon do no damage against them (think "no shotgun damage to fade" scenarios) or
- Aliens can select say 3 out of 9 weapon/attacks in which any health lost from them is quickly regenerated (e.g. the health lost from that weapon/attack is restored in 15s)
How do you define "hit and run"? I know that's supposed to be a selling point for the aliens, but I honestly haven't ever seen any hit and run sort of tactics... if you don't kill the marine you're fighting, chances are he'll either get healed back up before you can come finish him off, or he's gonna just kill you while you're running away. That's part of the reason you don't see regen/celery used very often. Cara + Adrenaline are both better where it actually counts, and there isn't really anything you can do other than nerf cara until it's basically useless, or buff the hell out of regen imo.
I'm not really opposed to the idea of being able to swap upgrades, but I do think it's a little unnecessary and seems more like something that would be put in the game to make it more forgiving to noobs than anything else. Right now (in vanilla atleast, don't have enough actual game experience with the mod) the only real use it would have is if you accidentally picked the wrong upgrade.
Lerk and fade play is mostly about hit-and-run tactics imo. Its also wrong to assume that just because an attack doesn't end in a kill means it was a failure. Simply delaying the building of a PG or a base attack by taking up the marines attention is valuable, presuming you don't die in the process.
My entire point is that as a practical matter, you won't be able to make multiple, viable upgrades without the ability to switch between them. Limiting lifeforms to one means they will focus on the best all-purpose upgrade (see cara) rather than tailoring it to the current or predicted situational need, except in the case of cheese tactics (see camo rush).
As I have already said, I would like to see the early/late game advantage of upgrades more pronounced, but it is still there currently. Two examples:
(1) Regen vs. cara. Against low level weapons, especially against machine guns only, regen is by far superior. Against high level weapons and shotguns, cara is almost a necessity.
(2) Cele vs. adren. Against low tech marines, celerity can be better. Against high tech marines, especially if they have jetpacks, adren will be better.
All true, but that's due to happenstance rather than design. Regen is designed for quick hit-and-runs attacks that just also happens to be very useful against w0/1 assault rifle marines. If we want to make the upgrade system more attuned to countering tech levels, we should make upgrades to counter tech levels, not try to shoehorn existing upgrades into those roles. Here are some potential examples:
- Bullet Shield = Takes half damage from bullets (assault rifle, shotgun, minigun exo, sentry counter)
- Reactive Armor = Caps max single-instant damage taken to 50 (shotgun, GL, railgun exo counter)
- Hardening Shell = The damage taken by each additional shot is reduced by 10% (assault rifle, flamethrower, railgun exo, sentry counter)
- Reflective Skin = A percentage of your damage taken is reflected back to the attacker if in close proximity (all weapons, but mostly shotgun counter)
Another method is just to let the aliens choose upgrade buffs versus weapons/attacks directly. For example:
- Aliens can pick a 50% damage reduction for say 3 out of the 9 weapons/attacks (i.e. axe, pistol, rifle, shotgun, grenade launcher, flamethrower, minigun exo, railgun exo) or
- Aliens can distribute 150% in damage reduction across the 9 weapons/attacks they so choose though you might want to cap the max damage reduction to something like 75% to prevent people from making a weapon do no damage against them (think "no shotgun damage to fade" scenarios) or
- Aliens can select say 3 out of 9 weapon/attacks in which any health lost from them is quickly regenerated (e.g. the health lost from that weapon/attack is restored in 15s)
I think creating upgrades for a very specific game scenario is an absolutely atrocious way to design a game. It can be done in some cases to address a specific issue (see SC2 phoenix range upgrade for example), but the general idea is that upgrades have a bunch of characteristics (the direct benefit, availability, cost, research time, prerequisite for other techs ...) that players use the way they see fit. The upgrade design and tech tree themselves should try to provide a good mix of these characteristics, but I think usually the less specific you can be with the exact upgrade scenario inside the game, the better.
The happenstance and shoehorning you talk about is players fitting the upgrade into the context they see purposeful, which is a huge part of the strategical development inside the game. Certainly there can be kind of no-brainer situations where an upgrade ends up being in a very specific role, but it shouldn't be the starting point when the upgrade is being designed.
---
For me having to commit to an upgrade means that there are some further diverse roles inside the team. If you you're going to have those 4-5 fades in a team, make them have to choose a characteristic and play according to it rather than just acting as a obscure mass of fades. Having to commit to upgrades means that there's some actual strategical stability in the game that forces aliens to decide how they invest and marines have some possibilities to react to the alien decision. At best this generates interaction between the teams, more diverse strategies and power shifts as the game progresses.
-? fade and onos eggs require now bio mass seven
-? allow aliens to change upgrades (min gestation time 5 seconds)
-? shifts increase the movement speed of nearby crags and shades
- cloaked units are always slightly visible
- increased regeneration upgrade to 7% health per tick, up from 6%
Them changes. I don't like moving the Fade egg to three hives, and moving Onos to three hives is just disappointing. 75 res for an Onos only happens once the two hives are maxed anyways, and I don't see the issue with making Onos biomass 6.
For Regen, what is the exact health regen formula?
I think creating upgrades for a very specific game scenario is an absolutely atrocious way to design a game. It can be done in some cases to address a specific issue (see SC2 phoenix range upgrade for example), but the general idea is that upgrades have a bunch of characteristics (the direct benefit, availability, cost, research time, prerequisite for other techs ...) that players use the way they see fit. The upgrade design and tech tree themselves should try to provide a good mix of these characteristics, but I think usually the less specific you can be with the exact upgrade scenario inside the game, the better.
The happenstance and shoehorning you talk about is players fitting the upgrade into the context they see purposeful, which is a huge part of the strategical development inside the game. Certainly there can be kind of no-brainer situations where an upgrade ends up being in a very specific role, but it shouldn't be the starting point when the upgrade is being designed.
I actually agree, which is why I prefer going the opposite route of allowing upgrade switching. I have yet to see a good example of an inflexible upgrade system that doesn't devolve in teams just choosing the 'best' all-purpose upgrade the vast majority of the time. NS1 only achieved a mediocre balance because some upgrades worked well for very specific lifeforms (e.g. fade + focus). Yet it still had mostly worthless upgrades (see redemption).
Its also not like NS2 is devoid of having to commit to specific paths without upgrade switching. You still need to commit to the upgrade type and lifeform. This simple change makes it much easier to make the alternative upgrades viable.
I think creating upgrades for a very specific game scenario is an absolutely atrocious way to design a game. It can be done in some cases to address a specific issue (see SC2 phoenix range upgrade for example), but the general idea is that upgrades have a bunch of characteristics (the direct benefit, availability, cost, research time, prerequisite for other techs ...) that players use the way they see fit. The upgrade design and tech tree themselves should try to provide a good mix of these characteristics, but I think usually the less specific you can be with the exact upgrade scenario inside the game, the better.
The happenstance and shoehorning you talk about is players fitting the upgrade into the context they see purposeful, which is a huge part of the strategical development inside the game. Certainly there can be kind of no-brainer situations where an upgrade ends up being in a very specific role, but it shouldn't be the starting point when the upgrade is being designed.
I actually agree, which is why I prefer going the opposite route of allowing upgrade switching. I have yet to see a good example of an inflexible upgrade system that doesn't devolve in teams just choosing the 'best' all-purpose upgrade the vast majority of the time. NS1 only achieved a mediocre balance because some upgrades worked well for very specific lifeforms (e.g. fade + focus). Yet it still had mostly worthless upgrades (see redemption).
Fana just mentioned that regen is good early game and cara later on. The same for cele and adren.
Obviously the mentioned interactions are pretty crude and simple, but the basic idea is already there: Should we invest in regen right away or should we play it more for the late game with high amount of cara fades?
Then again, I'm a regen fade, how am I going to play this when we've got 3 cara fades and no additional fades with regen? Am I going to harass the cappers? Am I still going to be in the big fight, but go in after the cara fades have tanked up some damage?
If you're allowed to switch, obviously you're going regen early on and then switch to cara when the marine damage levels go up and you're going to be in that big fight. At that point you're just one fade among others in a mass of equally efficient fades.
So I personally feel the decreased spawn speed of alien life structures isn't good, but I do like the idea about drifters helping build the structures.. Because it's a trade off from having them scout the map to building something quicker
Also I'm lost on the storm and mucous drifter abilities, both are used to gain movement speed? Except one is for infestation? Also spamming both is pretty vision obscuring
@bacillus That end result that you describe sounds more like it was caused by lifeform explosions than upgrades..?
A lot of it originates from the lifeform explosion. However, unless the balance mod manages to completely eliminate the explosion, we might as well design upgrades so that they support such system and make it more interesting to play.
If the balance mod manages to eliminate the whole issue, the whole context goes kind of weird. I feel the basic idea still stands though, it's better to have these upgrades that both force and allow somewhat different play styles and roles even for the same lifeform. I would've liked to see it more in NS1 and I feel NS2 could make an improvement there.
*I could be mistaken, but last i checked in the balance mod the commander not only picks which hive type that opens up said upgrades, (though all structures are unlocked) but he also drops structures in order to enable those upgrades, at his own discretion??
Dropping a chamber gives you access to both upgrades from that chamber, meaning you always have a choice (2 at hive1, 4 at hive2, 6 at hive3).
You can any time switch between upgrades still right? What prevents people from switching from cara to regen then back to cara whenever they get chipped? Now instead of falling back to the hive or crag spot they just heal up around the first corner.
You can any time switch between upgrades still right? What prevents people from switching from cara to regen then back to cara whenever they get chipped? Now instead of falling back to the hive or crag spot they just heal up around the first corner.
its faster to fall back to the hive and heal there than evolving (and being extremely vulnerable as egg)
Dropping a chamber gives you access to both upgrades from that chamber, meaning you always have a choice (2 at hive1, 4 at hive2, 6 at hive3).
Yup that sounds like what I said.. Hive type and therefore upgrade type, and then following that, level of said upgrade, are all up to the strategic and financial planning of one player, not yourself.
Glad to see upgrade swapping made it in though! Can't wait to try, though I am a bit worried that it was reimplemented without any of the suggestions given (going right back to the exploit laden issue)
Next Level had this up yesterday, and after playing the new jetpacks are pretty ridiculous.
All the games lasted at least 45 minutes.
Cele doesn't seem as important since you can shift run (with panting) now.
What I liked was unlocked structures, drifters can grow, aura (this is my first time playing with it), combined camo and silence (though camo was broken the marines could still see the aliens), can build on infestation, don't have to research the welders
Didn't like was the shadow step is now an upgrade, the Oni seem rather weak, JPs last forever. Seems like marines are going to win a lot more if there are not some tweaks made.
this is a good example of a balance patch - every change has the rationale for it alongside. id like to see something similar for this.
Let me give it a try.
Experimental:
-?? alien structures auto build rate is reduced by 70%, drifters speed up build time to normal rate
-?? reduced gorge cost to 5 (down from 10)
Not exactly sure about the reasoning behind this one, but that's probably why it has two questionmarks with it instead of the usual single one - it's really really experimental. It hampers alien expansion, gives marines more ways to intercept it, forces more res costs upon aliens for Drifters (though also forcing a bit of scouting that way, but in the end scouting is something you should want to do on your own anyway) or pulls some players off the offense to go Gorge instead.
Beneficial side effect is that it's more viable to go as supportive Gorge in combat since it's more expendable than usual. But it's also weaker, which is a drawback. You get more Bile Bomb harassment out of it, though.
Resource System:
- team resources when no RT active (counts as 0.5 active RTs)
- increased starting team resources to 70
- increased resource tower costs to 12
- removed "no res while dead" rule
- reduced personal resource income per RT from 0.125 to 0.1
- More starting res to give more possibilities for early game variation.
- RTs are more expensive to make their protection more meaningful.
- No Res While Dead was giving an edge to a dominating team and discouraging the idea of an expendable lifeform like Skulks and basic marines. Plus it really screwed your res gain over when you got caught in an auto-balance respawn limit.
- The 0.5 res gain is nice since it doesn't automatically make you lose a game on alien side once you get res locked. Marines always had the option to sell something. In the end it doesn't matter because you are still likely to have lost by that point in time, but at least it's not definite anymore.
General:
-? disabled gradual melee attacks
- added additional 6 second respawn time when rejoining a team, suiciding or when killed by a death trigger
- movement code rewritten
- Gradual melee attacks were compensating and still somewhat rewarding mindless bite spam in combat and were hard to distinguish (only different numbers popping up), making it really hard to tell how many bites you would need to kill a marine.
- The increased respawn time from those sources is to counter exploiting mechanics that would otherwise allow you to quickly respawn in your base, either because your PG got destroyed or just to force a quick respawn with full armor and thus working around the removal of armor healing from the Armory.
- One benefit of the movement code is that it fixes an issue where Skulks were making sounds that were audible to other players but not the Skulk itself when it was switching the surface it was attached to. Another goal is to increase the skill ceiling of the movement and to make it more fun and engaging.
Anti Spam:
- resource towers and command structures will now block re-creation for 5 seconds after destruction (enemy team is allowed to drop something)
-? crag, shade, shift are now moveable
- added supply limit for specific units, 100 supply per captured tech point
-? MACs can no longer weld each other
- MACs and Drifters are no longer able to attack
- multiple MACs are no longer able to weld the same target
- crags no longer stack their healing with each other and can heal a maximum of 3 targets at once
- shift energize no longer stacks
As the caption says: discourage spamming of units and structures that would result in too much PvE.
Marine Tech Tree:
- reduced armor / weapon research times by 20 seconds
- nano shield is now a research at command station
- arms lab no longer requires an armory
- welders no longer require a research
- exosuits require now a built robotics factory
- removed flame thrower and grenade launcher research (unlock with advanced armory)
- JP and Exosuit are now available with 1 command station
Marines get a lot of their tech faster. It allows for more varied openings with the increased starting res and makes them more reactive to alien strategies.
(I personally don't like the faster teching all that much, though.)
Exosuit:
-? reduced exo armor to 310, down from 400
-? reduced exo armor upgrade to 35, down from 40
-? reduced exo cost to 30 (50 for dual minigun)
-? exos can now be nano shielded
- exosuits can now use their thruster horizontal (use shift)
- reduced exo thruster cool down to 2.5 seconds (was 4)
- increased exo base speed to 6 m/s, up from 5
- reduced claw damage to 30
- fixed exo weapon not profiting from weapon upgrades
- toned down minigun damage to 16 (was 25)
- toned down railgun damage to 40+120 (was 50+150)
Lategame units are more on par with lower lifeforms instead of being a frustrating brick wall to fight against. They have less armor and need more welding, since MACs no longer stack. Their damage has been nerfed as well, since it was frustrating to lose your high lifeform that fast. To compensate, their mobility has been increased to make them less of a liability. The claw damage got nerfed since it was nearly one-shotting or two-shotting any Skulk that got close.
Flame Thrower:
- increase flame thrower clip size to 50 (was 30)
- removed flame thrower damage ramp up
- reduced flamethrower cost to 20 (was 25)
- reduced flamethrower weight and increased range slightly
- flamethrower can now burn up bile/whip bombs and disables enemy structure functions
- flamethrower can now burn up drifter clouds
Makes the Flame Thrower more viable, especially for sieging alien bases. It gained a lot of utility.
Grenade Launcher:
- reduced grenade launcher cost to 20 (was 25)
- increased grenade launcher reserve ammo to 28
- whips will now cause whacked grenades to detonate within 0.45 seconds
GLs used to be quite a liability. Now they got some buffs so that you don't run constantly out of ammo or get insta-killed by a Whip around a corner.
Shotgun:
- reduced base damage to 170
- adjusted shotgun spread
Attempt to tame the crazy damage output.
ARC:
- reduced ARC build time from 10 to 7
- reduced robotics factory upgrade time from 40 to 20
- reduced ARC movement speed by 50%
- fixed ARC not being properly affected by ink clouds
Encourage forward ARC Factories (similar to Siege Cannon outposts in NS1) instead of building the ARC train in the safety of your base.
Marine General:
-? marines can now build on infestation but any non player takes 15 damage to armor per second
-? reduced health/armor of Phase Gates to 2500/300 (down from 2700/450)
-? marines can now always sprint (no more fatigue)
- marine structures build 25% slower on infestation
- added ability for marine commander to temporary power individual structures
- amories no longer heal armor
- reduced welder cost to 4
- increased medpack cost to 2 (was 1)
- marines now always see when something is damaged (yellow wrench icon)
- added "Need Weld" to request menu, marines with a welder will get an auto weld order
- increased jetpack cost to 15 (was 10)
- removed MAC EMP
- reduced vision obscurring effect from bilebomb on exo HUD
- extractors and command stations can now be parasited
- increased spawn time to 9 seconds (was 7)
Phase Gate, Power Surge and infestation build changes are there to make real ninja PGs possible again. It also makes it less frustrating for commanders to drop structures near infestation.
Armory and Welder changes to promote teamwork.
Alien Spawn:
- each alien has individual spawn timer (13 seconds)
- an egg is generated every 12 seconds (6 seconds for 12 player)
- each hive can have max of 4 eggs (8 for 12 players)
- hives have now the hatch ability (2 eggs for 50 t.res)
Combat egg locking, especially on servers with larger player counts.
Whip:
-? increased whip bomb splash radius to 6 meters (was 3) and reduced damage by 50% (down to 600)
- whips can automatically bombard once they are matured
- reduced whip cost to 12 (was 15)
- whips will now root and unroot automatically
Makes Whips more intuitive to use and also less expensive. They are capped by the population limit instead of res production now.
Alien Tech Tree:
- added bio mass, upgrade at hive. each hive can provide 3 bio mass (1 default, upgrade hive 2 times)
- each bio mass level increases the base health of all life forms and is requirement for ability researches
- scaleable upgrades (for example build a maximum of 3 shells to get maximum efficiency for carapace, regeneration), 20 res per structure
- celerity works now in combat and increases max speed by 1.5 m/s
- regeneration works now in combat
- adrenaline increases max energy and regeneration rate by 10% per level
- added new shade upgrade which shows enemies and their health (called 'Aura' for now)
- merged silence and camouflage (called 'Phantom')
- Provides lategame scaling for aliens.
- Adds more timely separation between growing a Hive and acquiring the related upgrades. The Hive itself is already important as spawn point and healing station, but this way you still have to hold it for some time before you get your stuff.
- Losing a Hive is also more severe because you have to re-research the Biomass when you re-drop it.
- Makes 1-Hive gameplay more viable because you can get important upgrades already on 1 Hive.
- Rebalancing of tech path abilities to make them equally viable instead of having Cara as the only real alternative in comp play.
Fade:
-? swipe damage down by 16% (3/3/4/4 hits to kill a marine, same as skulk)
- fade: swapped blink and shadow step (shadow step is now the upgrade)
- blink: fades are a bit easier to see during blink
- shadowstep: does not add any momentum anymore instead moves you at high speed 6 meters in the desired direction (-> dodging), works also vertical
- fade vortex ability is now created as a seperate object in the world and block all attacks if no valid target has been hit
- disabled fade double jump
Vortex change is appreciated, can't really comment much on the rest because I don't play Fade often enough.
Lerk:
- spores are now tier 3 and bigger / cheaper to use.
- umbra is now tier 2 and blocks 1 out of 3 bullets (was 1 out of 2)
Lerk is supposed to be more in a support role instead of a flying tank or an earlier Fade.
(Imho this puts aliens into a little bad spot in the midgame, though, since they don't really have the ability of area denial to counter marine rushes and the weak Umbra does often not seem worth using.)
Onos:
-? changed stomp to affect marines in a radius rather than being a shockwave
- onos movement won't be blocked by skulks, gorges and lerks anymore
- reduced gore range to 1.7
- reduced gore damage to 100
Like the Exo, the lategame alien lifeforms are supposed to be less of a brick wall to fight against.
(The problem here is though that Onos are much more fragile now and jetpacking marines are a lot faster, so 2-3 of them are basically a death sentence to any Onos. Yet the Onos still costs 75 res and doesn't feel worth that price at all at the moment. Might as well go paper Fade. :>)
Gorge:
-? increased gorge move speed from 5.1 to 5.5 m/s
- hydras are now flamable
- increased gorge build rate
Some more utility for Gorge so that it can get around the map quickly, do it's duties and run away again.
(Flammable Hydras are too much, though. They die nearly instantly to any Flamethrower in range. Rather disable them with it instead of making it an instant kill)
Skulk:
-? skulk moves now faster instead of sneaking and consumes energy (crouch lets you still sneak)
- xenocide cant be cancelled anymore
- when dying by xenocide, skulk respawn time is reduce by 6 seconds
The intention of the Skulk sprint is to give new players a simple way of getting some speed at the cost of energy. You are still better of with wall jumping, but sprint is basically for the lower skill floor.
Xenocide actually got viable now due to the reduced respawn time and removal of No Res While Dead. And it is available on 2 Hives already, making it good to counter marines that try to rush your base with large forces (and it makes up a bit for the removal of Lerk Spores at that tier).
Infestation:
- cysts will block recreation in the area when destroyed for 4 seconds
- cysts will autobuild once their parent is contructed
- increased cyst build time to 4 seconds, removed cool down
- increased cyst range and infestation radius
- infestation receding is now twice as fast than growing
- gorge tunnel entrances create now infestation when the other side is infested
Less tedious gardening due to increased range, so khammander can focus on other things.
Marines can clear infestation faster away and unconnected structures take more damage, so it becomes viable to always kill the cyst first.
Gorge Tunnel infestation allows you to build a forward outpost with Crags, Shade and Shift at the other end of a Gorge Tunnel.
Drifter:
- Drifters can now be created during the hive is researching
- reduced drifter cloud costs to 1 (was 2)
- drifters unlock passive abilities depending on hive type (shade: camouflage, shift: celerity, crag: regeneration)
- drifters unlock triggered abilities (whip: enzyme cloud, shade hive: hallucinate, shift hive: storm cloud/movement speed, crag hive: mucous membrane/heals armor)
- moved hallucinations from shade to drifters: every alien in effect range generates a hallucination, controllable by the alien commander
More ways for the khammander to have an impact in fights, similar to medpack drops from the marine commander.
Definitely more interesting than cysting all day long.
Alien General:
-? crag, shift and shade can now always be build
-? utility chamber abilities require now the correct hive type
-? fade and onos eggs require now bio mass seven
-? allow aliens to change upgrades (min gestation time 5 seconds)
-? shifts increase the movement speed of nearby crags and shades
- cloaked units are always slightly visible
- increased regeneration upgrade to 7% health per tick, up from 6%
- rupture can now be cast directly on infestation, like bonewall
- added echo harvester to shift
- added echo gorge tunnel to shift (only on infestation)
- enemies are outlined with parasite only (damage will no longer trigger it)
- the normal gestation time is applied when using a pre-evolved egg instead of just 2 seconds
- shift echo ability no longer requires maturity
- Having all chambers from the start allows more varied strategies.
- Being able to change upgrades was requested for a long time.
- Walking chambers are cool, alien-like and make up for being unable to recycle them.
- Cloaked units being slightly visible makes up for Camo and Silence being merged. Marines still have to pay close attention to spot it.
- Rupture being casted as ability makes it actually viable. I think nobody used the cyst-mounted ability before.
- Echo Gorge Tunnel is the most awesome thing ever and the primary reason for me to go Shift first.
(Not sure how I should feel about Onos AND Fade eggs requiring Biomass 7. It used to be 3 before, which was definitely too early. But a 3-Hive requirement is too late, imho. At least the Fade should already be available at 2 Hives, in case you can't secure a 3rd Hive location.)
I was thinking what about adding an extra re-searchable for marines to extend the LMG clip size, since aliens will be moving a bit quicker, a few extra shots should help. But don't make them a freebie, make it a team decision.. do our marines need more bullets? let me research, are they holding their own? I'll save that res for something else
That or a faster reload research, just an idea; what does everyone think on that?
At one point catpacks were planned on being included in NS2. I guess the combo of marine sprint and other higher priorities forced them off the list.
haha, i seriously don't remember much of ns1, it's like asking me to remember the story missions of hl1 or hl2.. i forgot :S back then I was not competitive or anything like I like to play now, I use to play with 30 frames on counter-strike source when that came out, and probably only 40-60 frames on 1.6!
Comments
- Bullet Shield = Takes half damage from bullets (assault rifle, shotgun, minigun exo, sentry counter)
- Reactive Armor = Caps max single-instant damage taken to 50 (shotgun, GL, railgun exo counter)
- Hardening Shell = The damage taken by each additional shot is reduced by 10% (assault rifle, flamethrower, railgun exo, sentry counter)
- Reflective Skin = A percentage of your damage taken is reflected back to the attacker if in close proximity (all weapons, but mostly shotgun counter)
Another method is just to let the aliens choose upgrade buffs versus weapons/attacks directly. For example:
- Aliens can pick a 50% damage reduction for say 3 out of the 9 weapons/attacks (i.e. axe, pistol, rifle, shotgun, grenade launcher, flamethrower, minigun exo, railgun exo) or
- Aliens can distribute 150% in damage reduction across the 9 weapons/attacks they so choose though you might want to cap the max damage reduction to something like 75% to prevent people from making a weapon do no damage against them (think "no shotgun damage to fade" scenarios) or
- Aliens can select say 3 out of 9 weapon/attacks in which any health lost from them is quickly regenerated (e.g. the health lost from that weapon/attack is restored in 15s)
Lerk and fade play is mostly about hit-and-run tactics imo. Its also wrong to assume that just because an attack doesn't end in a kill means it was a failure. Simply delaying the building of a PG or a base attack by taking up the marines attention is valuable, presuming you don't die in the process.
My entire point is that as a practical matter, you won't be able to make multiple, viable upgrades without the ability to switch between them. Limiting lifeforms to one means they will focus on the best all-purpose upgrade (see cara) rather than tailoring it to the current or predicted situational need, except in the case of cheese tactics (see camo rush).
I think creating upgrades for a very specific game scenario is an absolutely atrocious way to design a game. It can be done in some cases to address a specific issue (see SC2 phoenix range upgrade for example), but the general idea is that upgrades have a bunch of characteristics (the direct benefit, availability, cost, research time, prerequisite for other techs ...) that players use the way they see fit. The upgrade design and tech tree themselves should try to provide a good mix of these characteristics, but I think usually the less specific you can be with the exact upgrade scenario inside the game, the better.
The happenstance and shoehorning you talk about is players fitting the upgrade into the context they see purposeful, which is a huge part of the strategical development inside the game. Certainly there can be kind of no-brainer situations where an upgrade ends up being in a very specific role, but it shouldn't be the starting point when the upgrade is being designed.
---
For me having to commit to an upgrade means that there are some further diverse roles inside the team. If you you're going to have those 4-5 fades in a team, make them have to choose a characteristic and play according to it rather than just acting as a obscure mass of fades. Having to commit to upgrades means that there's some actual strategical stability in the game that forces aliens to decide how they invest and marines have some possibilities to react to the alien decision. At best this generates interaction between the teams, more diverse strategies and power shifts as the game progresses.
-? allow aliens to change upgrades (min gestation time 5 seconds)
-? shifts increase the movement speed of nearby crags and shades
- cloaked units are always slightly visible
- increased regeneration upgrade to 7% health per tick, up from 6%
Them changes. I don't like moving the Fade egg to three hives, and moving Onos to three hives is just disappointing. 75 res for an Onos only happens once the two hives are maxed anyways, and I don't see the issue with making Onos biomass 6.
For Regen, what is the exact health regen formula?
Its also not like NS2 is devoid of having to commit to specific paths without upgrade switching. You still need to commit to the upgrade type and lifeform. This simple change makes it much easier to make the alternative upgrades viable.
Obviously the mentioned interactions are pretty crude and simple, but the basic idea is already there: Should we invest in regen right away or should we play it more for the late game with high amount of cara fades?
Then again, I'm a regen fade, how am I going to play this when we've got 3 cara fades and no additional fades with regen? Am I going to harass the cappers? Am I still going to be in the big fight, but go in after the cara fades have tanked up some damage?
If you're allowed to switch, obviously you're going regen early on and then switch to cara when the marine damage levels go up and you're going to be in that big fight. At that point you're just one fade among others in a mass of equally efficient fades.
Also I'm lost on the storm and mucous drifter abilities, both are used to gain movement speed? Except one is for infestation? Also spamming both is pretty vision obscuring
A lot of it originates from the lifeform explosion. However, unless the balance mod manages to completely eliminate the explosion, we might as well design upgrades so that they support such system and make it more interesting to play.
If the balance mod manages to eliminate the whole issue, the whole context goes kind of weird. I feel the basic idea still stands though, it's better to have these upgrades that both force and allow somewhat different play styles and roles even for the same lifeform. I would've liked to see it more in NS1 and I feel NS2 could make an improvement there.
Dropping a chamber gives you access to both upgrades from that chamber, meaning you always have a choice (2 at hive1, 4 at hive2, 6 at hive3).
its faster to fall back to the hive and heal there than evolving (and being extremely vulnerable as egg)
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/news/view/2832654788585875743/
this is a good example of a balance patch - every change has the rationale for it alongside. id like to see something similar for this.
Glad to see upgrade swapping made it in though! Can't wait to try, though I am a bit worried that it was reimplemented without any of the suggestions given (going right back to the exploit laden issue)
All the games lasted at least 45 minutes.
Cele doesn't seem as important since you can shift run (with panting) now.
What I liked was unlocked structures, drifters can grow, aura (this is my first time playing with it), combined camo and silence (though camo was broken the marines could still see the aliens), can build on infestation, don't have to research the welders
Didn't like was the shadow step is now an upgrade, the Oni seem rather weak, JPs last forever. Seems like marines are going to win a lot more if there are not some tweaks made.
Just a few of my first impression thoughts
Let me give it a try.
Not exactly sure about the reasoning behind this one, but that's probably why it has two questionmarks with it instead of the usual single one - it's really really experimental. It hampers alien expansion, gives marines more ways to intercept it, forces more res costs upon aliens for Drifters (though also forcing a bit of scouting that way, but in the end scouting is something you should want to do on your own anyway) or pulls some players off the offense to go Gorge instead.
Beneficial side effect is that it's more viable to go as supportive Gorge in combat since it's more expendable than usual. But it's also weaker, which is a drawback. You get more Bile Bomb harassment out of it, though.
- More starting res to give more possibilities for early game variation.
- RTs are more expensive to make their protection more meaningful.
- No Res While Dead was giving an edge to a dominating team and discouraging the idea of an expendable lifeform like Skulks and basic marines. Plus it really screwed your res gain over when you got caught in an auto-balance respawn limit.
- The 0.5 res gain is nice since it doesn't automatically make you lose a game on alien side once you get res locked. Marines always had the option to sell something. In the end it doesn't matter because you are still likely to have lost by that point in time, but at least it's not definite anymore.
- Gradual melee attacks were compensating and still somewhat rewarding mindless bite spam in combat and were hard to distinguish (only different numbers popping up), making it really hard to tell how many bites you would need to kill a marine.
- The increased respawn time from those sources is to counter exploiting mechanics that would otherwise allow you to quickly respawn in your base, either because your PG got destroyed or just to force a quick respawn with full armor and thus working around the removal of armor healing from the Armory.
- One benefit of the movement code is that it fixes an issue where Skulks were making sounds that were audible to other players but not the Skulk itself when it was switching the surface it was attached to. Another goal is to increase the skill ceiling of the movement and to make it more fun and engaging.
As the caption says: discourage spamming of units and structures that would result in too much PvE.
Marines get a lot of their tech faster. It allows for more varied openings with the increased starting res and makes them more reactive to alien strategies.
(I personally don't like the faster teching all that much, though.)
Lategame units are more on par with lower lifeforms instead of being a frustrating brick wall to fight against. They have less armor and need more welding, since MACs no longer stack. Their damage has been nerfed as well, since it was frustrating to lose your high lifeform that fast. To compensate, their mobility has been increased to make them less of a liability. The claw damage got nerfed since it was nearly one-shotting or two-shotting any Skulk that got close.
Makes the Flame Thrower more viable, especially for sieging alien bases. It gained a lot of utility.
GLs used to be quite a liability. Now they got some buffs so that you don't run constantly out of ammo or get insta-killed by a Whip around a corner.
Attempt to tame the crazy damage output.
Encourage forward ARC Factories (similar to Siege Cannon outposts in NS1) instead of building the ARC train in the safety of your base.
Phase Gate, Power Surge and infestation build changes are there to make real ninja PGs possible again. It also makes it less frustrating for commanders to drop structures near infestation.
Armory and Welder changes to promote teamwork.
Combat egg locking, especially on servers with larger player counts.
Makes Whips more intuitive to use and also less expensive. They are capped by the population limit instead of res production now.
- Provides lategame scaling for aliens.
- Adds more timely separation between growing a Hive and acquiring the related upgrades. The Hive itself is already important as spawn point and healing station, but this way you still have to hold it for some time before you get your stuff.
- Losing a Hive is also more severe because you have to re-research the Biomass when you re-drop it.
- Makes 1-Hive gameplay more viable because you can get important upgrades already on 1 Hive.
- Rebalancing of tech path abilities to make them equally viable instead of having Cara as the only real alternative in comp play.
Vortex change is appreciated, can't really comment much on the rest because I don't play Fade often enough.
Lerk is supposed to be more in a support role instead of a flying tank or an earlier Fade.
(Imho this puts aliens into a little bad spot in the midgame, though, since they don't really have the ability of area denial to counter marine rushes and the weak Umbra does often not seem worth using.)
Like the Exo, the lategame alien lifeforms are supposed to be less of a brick wall to fight against.
(The problem here is though that Onos are much more fragile now and jetpacking marines are a lot faster, so 2-3 of them are basically a death sentence to any Onos. Yet the Onos still costs 75 res and doesn't feel worth that price at all at the moment. Might as well go paper Fade. :>)
Some more utility for Gorge so that it can get around the map quickly, do it's duties and run away again.
(Flammable Hydras are too much, though. They die nearly instantly to any Flamethrower in range. Rather disable them with it instead of making it an instant kill)
The intention of the Skulk sprint is to give new players a simple way of getting some speed at the cost of energy. You are still better of with wall jumping, but sprint is basically for the lower skill floor.
Xenocide actually got viable now due to the reduced respawn time and removal of No Res While Dead. And it is available on 2 Hives already, making it good to counter marines that try to rush your base with large forces (and it makes up a bit for the removal of Lerk Spores at that tier).
Less tedious gardening due to increased range, so khammander can focus on other things.
Marines can clear infestation faster away and unconnected structures take more damage, so it becomes viable to always kill the cyst first.
Gorge Tunnel infestation allows you to build a forward outpost with Crags, Shade and Shift at the other end of a Gorge Tunnel.
More ways for the khammander to have an impact in fights, similar to medpack drops from the marine commander.
Definitely more interesting than cysting all day long.
- Having all chambers from the start allows more varied strategies.
- Being able to change upgrades was requested for a long time.
- Walking chambers are cool, alien-like and make up for being unable to recycle them.
- Cloaked units being slightly visible makes up for Camo and Silence being merged. Marines still have to pay close attention to spot it.
- Rupture being casted as ability makes it actually viable. I think nobody used the cyst-mounted ability before.
- Echo Gorge Tunnel is the most awesome thing ever and the primary reason for me to go Shift first.
(Not sure how I should feel about Onos AND Fade eggs requiring Biomass 7. It used to be 3 before, which was definitely too early. But a 3-Hive requirement is too late, imho. At least the Fade should already be available at 2 Hives, in case you can't secure a 3rd Hive location.)
Don't start this again IronHorse! I will dig up our 5 page debate hahaha
That or a faster reload research, just an idea; what does everyone think on that?
I would rather cat packs to shoot faster for faster moving targets, not something to have more bullets.
And holy crap thats alot typing and quoting.. I think i would kill myself trying to get this forum to do that.
no how many things do you remember from the early 2000's
At one point catpacks were planned on being included in NS2. I guess the combo of marine sprint and other higher priorities forced them off the list.
/dreams
..
Hurry Sewlek!
same here in america T_T
haha, i seriously don't remember much of ns1, it's like asking me to remember the story missions of hl1 or hl2.. i forgot :S back then I was not competitive or anything like I like to play now, I use to play with 30 frames on counter-strike source when that came out, and probably only 40-60 frames on 1.6!