Shift hive dominance?

xtal

Does anyone else think spur hive is overplayed? How about we break boring spur hive dominance? If currently we got even marine/alien win ratio and spur is most taken 1st upgrade, it means we should boost other chambers for early aliens - specially for skulks. Any cheap (easy to implement) ideas?



My thoughts:

crag hive: more shell upgrades makes gorge healing stronger but more adrenaline demanding, so it encourage gorge play and gorge+skulk combo but isn't overpowered.

shade hive: make shade cheaper and aliens inside shade range invisible even if they're moving fast (but not if they're under attack). Alien cysting is faster, so shade in field tactics could be viable and smaller aliens could easier ambush.

Frozen

Frankly I believe the game is better when it's centered and balanced around the more static starting chamber like it is now. We have more diversity than ever before because there's an actual choice now for the 2nd hive.

Unless aliens get celerity speed by default and then celerity makes them absurdly fast, I feel this shouldn't change.

There's physically no counter play to jetpacks without celerity, so it being stapled to first hive is a good thing. Otherwise you just get bad feels from getting rolled with crag/shade and jps up.

xtal

I don't think celerity goes to jetpacks only, but to weapon 3 and lifeforms survivability. Also we're talking about 1st hive upgrade, so you could always play with crag or shade and then 2nd shift.

Nordic

In September 2014 I made a similar thread to this one that had 6 pages of discussion. Nothing has changed.

With silence on shift hive now, I bet if I had more current data these graphs would show even more shift hive usage.

SantaClaws

Well in comp mod we actually see both crag and shift hive first. You only need to remove silence tbh.

IeptBarakat

Actually just making Hive types effect player upgrades only would do a lot in reducing Shift Hive dominance. Echo and Enzyme Cloud are pretty much indispensable in securing a 2nd Hive.

Vetinari

The short answer: Yes.
The long answer: We've talked about this many times before, but it never went anywhere, although the general consensus seemed that it is a little boring. But as Frozen said, balance is stable right now ( - miraculously, but it will stay so for a while now with the longer update cycle. I hope). I also agree that if we really want to change things, celerity will have to go or radically change.

Nordic

SantaClaws wrote: »

Well in comp mod we actually see both crag and shift hive first. You only need to remove silence tbh.

Still though, 68% shift hive compared to 30% crag hive. Shift hive is also dominant in competitive play.

Frozen

I really don't see a problem with a strong preference toward a chamber. You can still build strats around the other chamber. Cloaking just isn't fun and it gimps your team after marines upgrade slightly and you find yourself unable to take a 2nd hive because you no longer have combat effectiveness.

As for pub play, like it or not in theory, stable shift first will lead to less shitty boring rounds.

.trixX.

Frozen wrote: »

As for pub play, like it or not in theory, stable shift first will lead to less shitty boring rounds.

90% shift start is actually boring ;]

Getting crag/shade hive on pub is not suicide (without rookies), its just that if the aliens lose the com will be blamed for it solely... so noone dares to take that risk

The_Welsh_Wizard

F0rdPrefect wrote: »

But as Frozen said, balance is stable right now

Good one.

xtal

Did try shade hive as 1st upgrade yesterday and it looks quite promising. Did won 3 of 4 games. Maybe we all are prejudiced to shade :P

maD maX

Shift is easy mode for commanding.... Enzyme And echo are pretty simple and straightforward. Hallucinations can be tricky, ink is more useful late game, mucus is under used, and heal wave.... Does heal wave even work?

DC_Darkling

shift in pub is usually a nobrainer.
Echoing out full hp harvesters instead of building them in field with aliens who cant laneblock.