Paying for evolutions?
Stripetails
Join Date: 2013-01-30 Member: 182644Members, NS2 Playtester
Join Date: 2013-01-30 Member: 182644Members, NS2 Playtester
What if the Aliens had to pay a one time Pres "ransom" to unlock each evolution slot for the rest of that game?
For example: To unlock their Shift hive evolution slot a player would first have to pay 5-10 Pres, to unlock the Shade Evolution slot they'd have to pay 10-15 Pres, and for the Crag evolution slot they'd have to pay 15-20 Pres.
The price could also increase with the number of evolutions the player purchases instead of being a fixed price per hive upgrade.
For an example of this: The first evolution unlock slot would cost 5-10 Pres, the second 10-15, the third 15-20, regardless of the first purchase from a player being for the crag, shift, or shade expansion slot. (I'm sure this would be preferred)
This wouldn't slow down the appearance of higher life forms too dramatically, however in the late game it would delay a higher life form explosion for several precious minutes, or at the very least make one's effectiveness scale back a bit with with the players having to be more conservative with their res to get the full benefit out of their lifeforms.
For example: To unlock their Shift hive evolution slot a player would first have to pay 5-10 Pres, to unlock the Shade Evolution slot they'd have to pay 10-15 Pres, and for the Crag evolution slot they'd have to pay 15-20 Pres.
The price could also increase with the number of evolutions the player purchases instead of being a fixed price per hive upgrade.
For an example of this: The first evolution unlock slot would cost 5-10 Pres, the second 10-15, the third 15-20, regardless of the first purchase from a player being for the crag, shift, or shade expansion slot. (I'm sure this would be preferred)
This wouldn't slow down the appearance of higher life forms too dramatically, however in the late game it would delay a higher life form explosion for several precious minutes, or at the very least make one's effectiveness scale back a bit with with the players having to be more conservative with their res to get the full benefit out of their lifeforms.
Comments
I think you're overestimating how difficult it is to save res as an Alien, it's not very hard at all. Unless you're immediately gorging and dropping all your hydras at the start of the game, you can go Lerk within the first few minutes, and even without upgrades a good lerk can cause obscene amounts of harass. They can easily escape most situations and the only reason most lerks die early game are when they've run into the first shotgunner on the field.
Regardless, this change wouldn't make it any harder to evolve into a higher lifeform of any sort. The only thing this would do is make higher lifeforms scale as the game goes on, instead of being their most lethal the moment they appear, where as the Marines will have to continue to research and purchase their upgrades and weapons to become more powerful. Five pres to unlock an evolution is the same as a Marine purchasing a welder, something that has been brought up again and again to be an insignificant purchase in the long run, (Honestly it's not going to affect the alien side at all early game either) and by the time you secure a second hive you'll have the res towers to easily afford another evolution slot without falling behind, even if it cost 15 Pres to unlock a second evolution that would still only be similar to purchasing mines one time as a Marine.
I've not seen too much talk upon why Aliens get their research free while Marines have to spend their own res on everything they carry, so if you can come up with a good reason for every bit of research being free for Aliens aside from the silly argument of asymmetry, then I'd be glad to hear it.
Saying that marines don't have to re-buy items is flawed, as one you have no guarantee that you'll ever get your weapon back, the farther you are away from your spawn point when you die the further your chances of picking that weapon up are. Granted if you're in a group you will have a better chance of getting your weapon back but it is far from a guarantee, especially with the new change to bile bomb which can make your death instantly cost you your weapons even if you're just outside of your base in some cases. In larger games you'll always see more weapons recovered while in smaller, competitive games you'll see less.
As for the respawn times, yes, Aliens have a longer spawn time, but that is because they make up for it with their higher lifeforms being less likely to die than Marines. On an evenly matched game both teams spend very nearly the same total time dead.
Do understand that the idea was for the slot, not the upgrades themselves, the upgrades would still be free, you'd simply have to spend a small amount of Pres to use them. It's simply a suggestion that would promote a little more forethought into how you'd spend your res as the game goes on on the Aliens side, while allowing their evolutions to scale in accordance to when they appear.
I understand where you're coming from, but also understand that once a lifeform is purchased (unless it's a gorge) you have nothing that would cost you any res from there on out, unless you die. As that game goes on the longer you stay alive the faster your res gain becomes.
Why did they remove the troll flag?
@ OP
You can recycle a shotgun (marine pres sink)...you cant recycle a dead lerk.
Marines get their weapons and armour upgrades for free (dont even need to gestate again).
What
As far as I can see, this will give the players an option to either delay Lerks / Fades, or make them play "naked", or make them be more careful about staying alive each life (preferred outcome).
Tried during beta....penalised aliens too much.
Imagine a marine needing to fork out 6 res each time he spawns for each of his weapons and armour upgrades.