Increase Gorge build limit
1dominator1
Join Date: 2010-11-19 Member: 75011Members
Join Date: 2010-11-19 Member: 75011Members
I feel the gorge could benefit from being able to lay down more structures, perhaps at an increasing cost. Recently I played on the DMD server which has the hydra limit bumped up to 10 and it feels very liberating to be able to actually fortify a room and have your hydras make a difference in the fight, or to throw down the occasional support hydra in concert with another gorge without worrying about leaving your other strongpoints without support. By the time hydra spam has the potential to become a serious issue marines generally have AA and access to flamer and gl, which eat through hydras without any difficulty.
As it stands I almost never see hydras on other servers, and almost never use them myself. Three is just not really enough to make a difference and putting them down feels more like a waste of res than anything else. It also gives the gorge something to spend their res on later in the game, and gives them an ability to shape the battlefield in a significant way well into the late game.
On the dmd server all 10 have a flat cost, but maybe an increasing cost with increasing number of hydras could help alleviate any potential spam.
While the same could be said of webs and clogs I think those are in a good spot. The fact that they are free and that their instant build time allowing you to throw them down in the middle of a fight means that the limit is not so much of a problem, you can easily replace them as soon as they get used up and easily set them up in a new location. But with hydras which both cost res and take a while to grow the fact that you can only have three both discourages you placing them in the first place and then moving them once you have. It also encourages stagnant and passive play, you have to constantly baby sit them because even one marine will have no trouble wiping out 3 hydras in less than 10 seconds. You dont have the time to react and it doesnt do much to deter marines, just a waste of res.
What do you think? The gorge is pretty strong as is and this might push it over the top, but if it doesn't I think it would make for a more diverse and fun lifeform.
As it stands I almost never see hydras on other servers, and almost never use them myself. Three is just not really enough to make a difference and putting them down feels more like a waste of res than anything else. It also gives the gorge something to spend their res on later in the game, and gives them an ability to shape the battlefield in a significant way well into the late game.
On the dmd server all 10 have a flat cost, but maybe an increasing cost with increasing number of hydras could help alleviate any potential spam.
While the same could be said of webs and clogs I think those are in a good spot. The fact that they are free and that their instant build time allowing you to throw them down in the middle of a fight means that the limit is not so much of a problem, you can easily replace them as soon as they get used up and easily set them up in a new location. But with hydras which both cost res and take a while to grow the fact that you can only have three both discourages you placing them in the first place and then moving them once you have. It also encourages stagnant and passive play, you have to constantly baby sit them because even one marine will have no trouble wiping out 3 hydras in less than 10 seconds. You dont have the time to react and it doesnt do much to deter marines, just a waste of res.
What do you think? The gorge is pretty strong as is and this might push it over the top, but if it doesn't I think it would make for a more diverse and fun lifeform.
Comments
However, It might be a good idea to make it possible to recycle some your hydras pres when you destroy them and/or when you drop a new one.
E.g.:
Destroying a hydra via use ("E") would recycle 2 pres (location dependent)
Destroying a hydra while dropping a new hydra would recycle 1 pres (location independent)
This way replacing them in another spot isn't as expensive as the initial drop.
There is the argument that the gorge needs a pres drain, which still holds true, but If replacing hydras is as expensive as dropping new ones, no one will (or should) ever do it. It's kind of a noob trap if you waste more pres on hydras, and it makes the hydra mechanic a bit dull.
Agree with all of that apart from recycling hydras pres being dependant on location (eurghhh), we have enough hidden mechanics at it is, this will just add another one to the list.
Just make the pres universal across the board for recycling if this has to be done.
Sure, if you only place them midgame and alter, and always cluster all three of them together behind some corner, marines are going to be able to deal with them.
However, early game three hydras (especially cleverly placed hydras) can effectively deny a room for a single marine, unless he gets med support, and give two marines a hard time. And that's what it's all about. Area control, not killing enemies. Throw in a defending skulk and they provide a clear advantage.
Ten hydras sounds like insanity to me. I get that you won't be able to drop them all right away, but damn. Yet another reason for me not to play on DMD.
Ten hydras sounded crazy to me too at first, but they cost more res so it sort of balances out..
4 res per hydra means that dropping all 10 is 40 res... That's pretty far into the game, and as OP pointed out by that time marines have flamethrower...
I've just found them more useful for keeping myself alive as gorge late game. Setting up a choke point to lure marines into is suicide with just 3 hydras.. But with 10 it requires marines to use teamwork or FT/GL.. A single rifle marine with a3/w3 won't be able to obliterate your defenseless gorge.
You're probably right.
I was thinking the intuitive way of recycling hydras would be to destroy them with use ("E"), but I don't want gorges having to run back to the hydra first, because they would then be wasting time.
Retaining less pres when you're not actually there would be a compromise.
In any case, the pres retainment would need to scale with the hydras current hp, so you can't just drop a new hydra, when the old one is about to die.
Ah, I didn't catch that they cost more.
Still a lot, though.
And the server would die as well
Why are you so toxic damn!
If the current implementation of hydras is "weak" enough to have minimal impact on the game, why not remove them completely and replace with a less resource intensive aggressive gorge ability? If it is "fun", then the OP request is legitimate, and only the performance issue is a hindrance.
Ftfy
Not always, but some.
Overfocus on pvp and a lack of pve is equally bad as having to much pve, and id argue the pve in ns2 is so much not worth it, it could use a realistic boost.
For example, when you're currently in whip range you get hit no matter what. It would be more fun, if the hydra/whip had a wind up attack, that you can reliably dodge. The whip attack could be dodged through a timed crouch or jump and the hydra projectile through a timed change in movement direction.
The windup would need indication at least through an audio cue, since you can't always have your eyes on the whip/hydra.
So when you'd be in whip range and hear a "tsssss", you press crouch and when you hear a "grrrrr", you press jump.
It would be in your control to manage not to get hit (like jumping over onos stomp)
I'm not entirely sure, but I think the whip not hitting had been fixed(?!)
Not to mention what PvE does to melee aliens.
It's not fun to empty a clip into something that the alien team can purchase cheaply (excess Tres) / provide time for aliens to respond / take damage from in the meantime / cost marine tres to assist.
3 hydras works just fine.. and if you have two gorges that make a proper clog fort with 6 hydras, it can be pretty fortified.
Does no one remember the alpha days of unlimited hydras? Killed servers and it was just impenetrable.
Hydra limit is in a good spot.. you could always tweak ROF or something else instead if it was really needed.
Surely youre not using the alpha as a benchmark for performance? It should not be necessary to point out how absurd that is.
As for performance in general, the DMD server runs just fine and neither does it become bogged down with endless PVE. I suppose we can theory craft all we want, but at the end of the day my experience as gorge on the one server which has actually tried upping the hydra limit is significantly more fun that the others.
Lets make Hydras parasite Marines too.
Hydra's do kill client performance and hurt server performance too. This is today, not alpha days. Test it for yourself.
1. Go to the server menu, and click "Start server". Set it up however you like, any map. It will put you on a server of your own by yourself.
2. Open console with the tilda key "~" and type "cheats 1". Then choose either marine or alien team, it really won't matter. Go to anywhere you like on the map you chose.
3. In console type "fps". This will show you your fps. Use "r_stats" to get more detailed performance information. Look around the room you chose and remember the typical FPS you saw.
4. In console type "spawn hydra". It will place a hydra where you are aiming. Repeat this 10 times until you have 10 hydras around you.
5. Look around the room again. Check you typical FPS compared to what it was before.
6. Now spawn 10 more hydras. Check your typical FPS compared to what it was before.
7. Now spawn 10 more hydras. Check your typical FPS compared to what it was before.
8. Now spawn 10 more hydras. Check your typical FPS compared to what it was before.
9. Now spawn 10 more hydras. Check your typical FPS compared to what it was before.
Your performance should have been pretty bad after 20 hydras. See how bad it is with 50 hydras.
Also, WHY is DMD not in arcade mode with extra entities, increased hydra limit, and whatever else they may have?
Servers are already having a tough time late game, they don't need to be worsened.
I dont see the problem with the weak PvE giving the aliens time to respond(which is a very nice and quite needed effect/mechanic imo), get lucky to weaken the marines, or force the comm to drop an ammo pack (which is also needed after shotting down an RT), but calling it cheap.... I don't see how you came to that conclusion.
Here is an essay I wrote on commanding in ns2.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C4fxDy7ziET88oNv5srTaTRzqNdva2YxHGXpkvw2zyE/edit?usp=sharing
Go to the "Interactions and Options" then "Khaara" to find what I am talking about. The Kham (alien commander) should be focusing on getting Metabolise at a decent timing compared to when the fades hit the field. The Kham has a set amount of tres, which only gets smaller, the more RTs he has, to get metabolised timed well. PvE is hella expensive for alien commanders at the beginning of the game, and the only reason to get it is providing time for the aliens to respond.
Later in the game, they will be spending their tres on hive, biomass, rebuying drifters, upgrades, upgrade chambers, and just like medpacks delay the tech of the marines, whips and other pve delay the alien tech. If anything, be thankful for too much pve - that shit can be blown up, together with any advantage the aliens pretended to have due to it.
If the game goes to a point where neither commander can get tech and everything it poured into pve and support, I doubt we should be looking at the commander and their actions, but rather the actions (or lack thereof) of the field players.
Extra hydras, NS2+ (which everyone runs) and extra maps are pretty much the only game play affecting mods on DMD.
Of course my computer can't host NS2 and of course entities have an effect on performance, however they don't run these servers on PCs but rather on specialized dedicated servers and from what I have seen DMD servers they can easily handle a hydra limit of 10. Almost every single game I have played on a DMD server has been perfectly playable and felt like it ran just as smoothly as any other server, and many of those games lasted well into the late game. I counted one instance of poor server performance in the last month that I have restarted playing and it was not even persistent, it cleared up in less than 30 sec.
But who knows, maybe they just have mega uber servers and all the other servers would run like crap with an increased hydra limit. Or maybe the DMD servers are filled with deviants who don't spam down their hydras in the kind of quantities normal players on other servers would. I certainly haven't compared the server specs.