Build 178 Fade Blink should return!
FearlessJames
Join Date: 2015-12-09 Member: 209849Members
Join Date: 2015-12-09 Member: 209849Members
Hello! As many of you know,the Fade's Blink ability has undergone SO many changes,from instant teleport to hyper-fast flight. In older builds,he used to dissapear and re-appear whereever it pleased. To Marines,it looked like teleporting,but really,he's just flying around really fast while invisible! Later builds had him appear as an awesome blue mist while blinking!But in current builds,he is 100% visible while blinking,and it looks really really stupid. I mean,we already have one flying alien,but seeing a fade just awkwardly fly around in the air? That's not what he does! He should live up to his name and fade away from sight! My suggestion? Bring back the original blink as seen in this video at 1:28! 
It looked cool,and gave that elusive teleport effect! (Isn't teleporting the Fade's signature move?) And if dissapearing is too much,atleast make him turn into a freaky blue mist again! I really hate seeing Fades fly around in the air 100% visible....it doesn't have that nostalgic feel to it. Plus,i'm sure it'd make escaping as a Fade a bit easier!
This is also my first discussion post on the forums,and i'm really liking it here!
It looked cool,and gave that elusive teleport effect! (Isn't teleporting the Fade's signature move?) And if dissapearing is too much,atleast make him turn into a freaky blue mist again! I really hate seeing Fades fly around in the air 100% visible....it doesn't have that nostalgic feel to it. Plus,i'm sure it'd make escaping as a Fade a bit easier!This is also my first discussion post on the forums,and i'm really liking it here!
Comments
You say "it'd make escaping as a Fade a bit easier", well it would make him immortal at current speeds and health. And also very hard to track if he were to be completely invisible as way back in NS2 Beta. Change those HP/AP values and you can't properly engage close quarter vs shotties. Fade is too fast for newbies though playing as and against
Well TBH any alien besides George is too fast for newbies to play as or against anyways...
But yeah, it's a real tossup between blink mobility and ability for marines to track vs the survivability for the Fade when doing the stabby thing.
He should be a glass cannon, but instead we have a murder machine in the right hands. However making him weaker will cause newbies to flash him even faster... The Fade and the Lerk are both the biggest offender vs newbie retention, as is the shotgun marine, well Rifle as well to some extent. All because of the ridiculously high skill ceiling, in the right hands they become so powerful, it's scary. Too much power in the hands of an individual is most likely killing this game and we have so many things that give so much power to a good/god player...
Sometimes I wonder if this game is ever going to appeal to just above casual players even
This was rejected for what we have now, the full control blink.
So basically what we have now but with a limited blink time? The cooldown would kill it in combat though, could focus on raising the initial energy cost of blink to prevent spamming it in combat.
The older iterations of fade were also much more unintuitive to play than the current set up. The current mechanic is easier to learn, and harder to master and allows for fades across varying skill levels. One of the only big issues with the fade now is it's late game killing potential, which @rantology has addressed in her simplification document.
As for the fade blink effects - the old effect was visually obstructive for marines and added a lot of visual clutter on screen (anyone remember old crop duster spores plus fade blink effects on screen at same time?) - I would only support that being reintroduced if there was an option in the main menu to turn it off.
There is a prototyping mod I've uploaded called NS2:Evolved, where I try all sorts of fun experimental changes. The current Blink modifucation has a 0.4 second limit per use, but accelerates rapidly with very limited turning (like a longer shadow step with slightly more control).
Keep an eye out for more changes!
Seems like you are describing hit and run play style, which is what I do with pretty much every life form. It think that is just good play.
Aka a fade on full health would be somewhat/full invisible while in blink.
A fade on low health would be quite visible.. Possible even slower?
And/or add a cooldown to go invisible after every attack.
That way you can still nuke a fade if he made a mistake or something?
Not sure how it would affect rookies.
Indeed and that 1.5sec min/max timer +cooldown comes with another issue besides taking away the freedom, well this issue is kinda tied to taking away that control, you can only learn to control your trajectory (making you more predictable to marines as well). Because you have no control over when to exit the blink. So you kinda tend to slam into a wall, go off a cliff or overshoot your targets when using it for combat situations if this was how blink would work
You want to blink to a marine 3 meters from your location. Blink -> overshoot like 10 meters.
Alright brains storm time
This is where shadowstep could play a role, I guess. Multidirectional Shadow Step for close quarter combat and Forward Blink to move in and out of combat and for general moving around the map... I believe this wasn't tried yet right, we had the full control blink AND shadow step, as a result making shadow step kinda a gimped blink instead of a valid alternative by separating them into movement and combat roles...
Skulk Leap for instance is much better balanced because it doesn't have those insane ranges to move during combat...
Hmm come to think of it, this doesn't sound half bad, as it kinda limits your "flying in from across the map, slap marine and fly away" elusive thing. In turn changes it to "fly around the map or escape with blink and combat your foes with shadowstep/slaps"
- Blink, forward movement used for escape/move in skill and used for moving around the map in combination with bouncing/hopping
- Shadow Step, multi directional move for use in combat
Right now the skill ceiling is tied to that insane blink control and even in above average player hands, it becomes an almost immortal... I think that by assigning these short range combat roles to Shadow Step and long range Blink for movement and going in/out of combat. With the predictability on both sides. Where the Fade has to judge his escape lines and the marines can try and predict his escape lines. Would keep the skill floor, but lower the insane skill ceiling... With insane I mean, godlike players are simply unstoppable vs a whole marine team of above average/entry level compies. That shit is skewed man
In NS the fade blink was on a weapon slot as well along with swipe, metabolize and acid rocket. Well up until it became a movement modifier right or changed through client side scripting... But as default it had a weapon switch delay between swipe and blink. That is kinda what is missing in NS2 as well...
I also don't remember the Fade in NS being as fast as its younger NS2 counterpart using simply a right click... You'd have to do a bit more effort to maintain those speeds...
I really like this idea! But yeah,might give rookies a hard time.
I see what you mean,I just think making the Fade live up to it's name would be pretty neat <:) And yeah,it'd be nice if there was an option to turn it off the effects on/off.
Back before b250 I mained fade. I was kind of skilled, but not high level by any measure. Almost half the reason I played ns2 was for the old shadowstep fade. It provided me with that much enjoyment. Blink does not provide me that level of fun. I try fading again every once in awhile, and I do ok but I just find blink to be a boring movement mechanic.
Since fading was not fun anymore after b250 I decided to instead main lerk. Lerk is a lot of fun right now. I am not super skilled either. I am a good pub lerk, but I would flash my lerk if I were to join a gather. Lerking replaced the enjoyment I got out of fading. If that were to change into something unfun I would strongly consider quitting ns2.
My point is that the movement mechanics, although difficult to a rookie, are loved by what little community we have left. They should not be touched.
You speak the truth my friend...
That's easy, your mechanic punishes people for making mistakes. Who makes the most mistakes?
I'm curious why you don't find the fade fun to play as, though. I play on 32 to 40-man servers whenever possible and combat can get very challenging due to the sheer number of enemies that I have to keep track of. I play seriously when fading and I have a lot of things going through my mind at any given time. Can I stick around for more swipes and get a kill? Do I have enough energy? Do I need to gtfo? Are there marines in this retreat path? Am I going to get pinched? Where am I needed next? Can we grind this PG? Do I respond to this threat or that? Besides focusing on kills, I scout around, use my map constantly, and lend my team as much intel as possible. All of this requires a lot of focus and I constantly try to find something to do in order to benefit my team. Did you find yourself doing these things as well or did you take a more relaxed and less serious approach? Challenging yourself to your limits can make for some nail-bitingly fun games even as fade.
However,I do agree that the current blink is....really bland. As seen in my video,the reason Instant-Teleport Blink was removed was to make blink more skill based.....but how is quickly tapping RMB to get a quick boost skill based? What if in a major update or something,they revamped blink entirely?! How,I dunno.....but the current one is kinda boring,so what if they made it more useful(besides a speed boost) and most importantly,more fun?!
I might need to make a new suggestion post! Thankyou for making my brain do something for once
This guy knows how to make a well balanced feature! I like it! (Also,I read your name as Twittleblue
Blink jumping is skillful and a learning curve is involved since it's not readily apparent or intuitive to rookies. They usually just hold blink to move from place to place until they realize that they expend energy too quickly. Even then, they probably don't realize that they can combine blink tapping with jumping in order to conserve speed. Then they must realize that they must jump like a skulk (hold jump before you touch the floor or press jump as soon as you touch it) in order to conserve the most speed. They must also learn that, like a skulk, they need to hold strafe toward the direction they're turning in order to conserve speed while turning.
I'm all for making the game more fun while keeping it balanced. This can be a difficult process since new mechanics can throw off balance completely depending on how they interact with current mechanics. Since we're discussing fade abilities, you could make an argument for swipe being too boring either aesthetically or mechanically. There's no pressing reason to change it, though, and I feel the same way about blink.
On the other hand, stab must be replaced or redone heavily. Stab is just too situational since you need to either get the drop on an unaware marine or close the distance without taking too much damage and hope he doesn't have a shotty/gl and/or a teammate nearby. Against aware marines, there's too much risk involved since stab limits your mobility, it costs too much energy, and the 2-second wind up time gives marines plenty of time to juke. Swipe is much more safe to use and it's hardly as punishing as missing a stab. Another disadvantage to stab is because it teaches players bad habits. Fades spend all of their time swiping before stab is researched (if it ever is) and it's better to keep swiping in the late game in order to perfect your accuracy/technique while juking. Also, once stab comes out and you happen to die as a fade, there's no reason to go fade again. I prefer wait for 2 more biomass and xenocide to get researched since it's actually a game-ending ability.
I'd much rather see acid rocket make a comeback since it would make fades much more useful and relevant during late game. I like the devs' idea of changing the aesthetics so that it would be a damaging ball o' vortex or something instead. Perhaps it could be given a bile bomb-like arc so that fades can't attack too safely from afar. It would still be much more safe to use compared to swipe or stab since you wouldn't have to get in melee range.
And I agree that stab needs to be redone or better,replaced! (It's so slow :I) I've never played the first Natural Selection,so I don't really know what the acid rockets are,but they sound pretty neat! But yeah,stab is REALLY hard to use,unless they re-add shadow step,i'm not touchin Stab >:I