Advanced Alien Abilities
Mouse
The Lighter Side of Pessimism Join Date: 2002-03-02 Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
The Lighter Side of Pessimism Join Date: 2002-03-02 Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
At the moment the aliens have no real end-game tech. The main reason to get a third hive is to deny the marines a second base. Apart eventually being able to use from the tactless nuke that is contaminate, alien gameplay doesn't change once they're in the endgame.
A way to change this would be to introduce advanced versions of most of the lifeform abilities, approximately 3-4 biomass (1 hive) beyond the initial research.
Some quick suggestions:
Adv. Bile = increased range
Adv. Healspray = a persistent healing cloud
Adv. Spores = increased DoT
Adv. Umbra = improved damage reduction
Adv. Bone Shield = AoE shield (protects nearby aliens)
Adv. Leap = damage on impact
+ other abilities
A way to change this would be to introduce advanced versions of most of the lifeform abilities, approximately 3-4 biomass (1 hive) beyond the initial research.
Some quick suggestions:
Adv. Bile = increased range
Adv. Healspray = a persistent healing cloud
Adv. Spores = increased DoT
Adv. Umbra = improved damage reduction
Adv. Bone Shield = AoE shield (protects nearby aliens)
Adv. Leap = damage on impact
+ other abilities
Comments
The problem with these late game abilities is that they don't end the game quick enough, enable marine turtling, and lead to lame duck scenarios. A lame duck scenario is when one team has won, but the game isn't over yet. In my opinion, lame duck scenarios are one of the worst things in NS2.
Contaminate is a blunt instrument designed to end the game simply because aliens late game abilities are not good enough. I think alien abilities need a good thoughtful complete redesign. Replace alien late game abilities so that aliens can actually end the game faster, then there will be less lame duck scenarios, and less need to concede.
Hive upgrade that enables an increase of effectiveness in Crag, shift and shade upgrades. This would require purchasing the upgrade from the hive at maybe biomass 6 + or maybe it could work with each singular at 3 biomass intervals getting the hive to *fully matured*. Then you would have to buy another upgrade chamber.
I think this could be fun as both normal or end game mechanic. If it was modified to work as an end game mechanic then it would looks something like: only purchasable after 9 biomass, buy the upgrade in the hive, then buy 3 chambers to unlock +9, +13, +18% effectiveness of chambers or something.
Advanced bile sounds cool. How about something like using more energy will shoot a bile it in a straightish line and you can right click to pop it mid air and it biles stuff in an area around that and under. This would be sweet for those pesky jps. Heck even that doesnt happen but instead Adv bile gave the effect of what Cyst bursting does then that could be super useful.
Cyst upgrades:
Maybe 7 biomass upgrade that you can buy from the hive and with this you can upgrade the cysts to do new things. For example:
Shade Hive: Haze / Mist cyst upgrade
Cost 1 to 2 res each cyst. basically if a marine walks in the infestation produced by this cyst or near the cyst it will release gas that distorts vision.
Crag Hive: Hardened cyst upgrade
Cost 2 res each. Adds an small armor shell to selected cysts.
Shift hive: Slick / Dense cyst upgrade
Cost 1 res each. Going along with the 3 different types of hives this one would either speed up aliens while walking on infestation or slow down marines walking on it. Or both.
Crag hive idea #2: Corrosive infestation
Cost 2 res each. Marines slowely lose armor while walking on infestation produced by that cyst.
Infestation upgrades
This could be a different implementation as the previous cyst ideas except you could upgrade infestation from the respective hive and have it as a passive upgrade to cysts. This would require biomass 3 from that hive and a purchasable upgrade from the hive AND to make it fair it would have to be selected prior to cysting as an option. So it would be Cysting or Upgraded Cysting. Upgraded cysts would cost more ie like 2 or 3 to place but each hive will automatically apply its effects after that hive reaches its 3rd biomass and purchased upgrade.
Cleave for fade:
Basically make it a small conal sweep attack that uses a bit of energy but can damage all enemies in that area. Replaces Stab. Should hit less than a normal swipe per hit like 50 or something. terrible in 1v1 but good in grouped up marines. Maybe have a small charge up for it but much less than the current stab charge. That shit just takes too long and i can get 2 swipes in b4 one of those gets off and i will probably miss it anyway lol.
I keep hearing that from you, but I dont really see the problem with stomp. One onos can be out-jumped indefinitely.
Also, how is getting stomped and killed more frustrating than fighting god-like lerks whom you can hit 2 times out of a clip?
Or getting blasted in the face around corners with a noobtube?
By that logic, the whole game is frustrating because you get killed sometimes... :P
Xenocide is AWESOME! It's a perfect ability for late-game aliens.
It's powerful, but one skulk can't spam it. You need teamwork to do real damage.
Marines also have a heads up, because of the scream and delay of the explosion.
If an ability has a reasonable place on the strategic/tactical level, then i don't give a rats ass how frustrating it is to play it out on the field...
I'd also be happily sitting in an onos' belly for 20 seconds if the devour ability were to be reintroduced ;]
NS/NS2 in a nutshell right
FYI Xenocide is currently bugged in a number of ways. If it worked properly, I'm pretty sure everyone would agree that it's overpowered.
Devour has the same problem as stomp. I am not surprised that you enjoy devour if you like stomp
You may not but I do care how frustrating it is. I think we have both said our part and there will be no convincing the other.
So does dying... so is dying a bad mechanic? I don't see the difference.
I'll keep on hammering anyway, others might be more open-minded:
I still dont understand why you've singled out stomp. What if too many marines died and it takes ages to respawn? Should we insta-spawn now, so players dont get sad?
What about gorge clogs? They can just keep putting up a new one in tight corridors and block off any marine. What about armoury blocking?
What about spores? If the comm doesn't/can't med, it's a nightmare for the marines.
A mechanic is only frustrating if it is unreasonable/illogical and not well communicated.
Whatever people try to make of NS, it is more an RTS than an FPS. If you run into engagements like a braindead lemming, you will get frustrated (im not saying you are, but my bet is that you are trying to place yourself in the "newbie" perspective to help them).
If you know there's an onos around, find high ground / vent entrances / prepare to jump. You have so many options not to be frustrated by avoiding the stomp in the first place.
I have not singled out stomp. In this thread I actually called for a complete redesign of alien abilities, which was intentionally dramatic. From my perspective you seem stuck on why I think stomp is bad. I think the more important thing to talk about is why I want to redesign all alien abilities, but here we are talking about stomp. Stomp is a buggy frustrating mess, but it is actually very stong, which is a separate from my core argument.
We disagree on this too, but that is very unrelated to the point I have been trying to make since the power levels thread. I will state why I disagree, but I want to be clear this is separate from what I am talking about.
NS2 is primarily an FPS for two reasons.
1) NS2s is pretty basic in the strategy part compared to most games that are pure RTS. The tech tree in ns2 is much more basic and linear. Your actual strategic options are quite limited. NS2 is not a very good RTS.
2) Player kills are so important in NS2 that the team that gets the most kills wins early on is almost always the winner. The correlation between player kills and winning is higher than res earned and winning. While getting res may help you tech up and get more kills, the point is to get those kills. The team that gets the most kills usually has more res. The RTS elements may be basic compared to other RTS games, but they add amazing depth to the FPS portion of the game.
That is a very kind way to say L2P. I appreciate actually having a kind thoughtful way to say that, but it shows how much you missed what I am really trying to bring attention to. This could easily be me not communicating them properly. It is kind of funny that you and I are talking about the same thing in three different threads.
I'd like if the game kept it's uniqueness, and that includes abilities like devour/stomp, where players must suffer creative penalties.
My fear is that by fixating on making the game more "accessible", that will disappear.
The nature (asymmetric RTS+FPS multi) of the game entails that there will be frustrating elements, so the players who stick will be capable to handle it.
Yeah... it might have been me who singled out stomp for an easy strawman...
NS thrives on teamplay, and the thing about devour was that it created excitement FOR the marines. Kill the onos before it poops out your teammate! That's an excellent incentive for the marines which adds to the atmosphere and overall better the game, even if one player must suffer at worst for 20 secs. You have to count those factors in when you model the gameplay.
I can't argue about the statistics, you have the hard data ;]
But I'd be curious if kill:win vs res:win would look the same if imbalanced rounds were corrected for. What I mean is that stomp rounds, which are quite common on pub, could skew it.
I have plenty of anecdotal evidence for it being more of a strategy game
I'd like if NS stayed L2P with a skill increment that looks like sqrt(x) instead of x^2. If you want to remove stomp because it paralyzes marines (let's ignore the implementation bugs), then I don't think you want that.
What I'm sure we agree on, is that advanced meta, stab and contamination are terrible
So rethinking late alien abilities is good, but removing something because it causes REASONABLE discomfort is not.
Let me put it this way instead. I think stomp is unfun because it removes control from the player. A god lerk player may kill you instantly, but at least you have control of yourself and it is your own skill that is lacking. Stomp takes all control away from you. This is unfun. This is something I learned from @IronHorse long ago, and maybe he could say more on the matter.
I am not sure where you are getting that I am trying to make the game more accessible. You mentioned earlier that I am placing myself in the newbie perspective, and that is not what I am doing. You are assuming my intentions. My intention is to make the game more fun. Rookies are the ones with the unfun last stand mentality.
What I am suggesting is to make end game tech intentionally very overpowered so that the final baserush is easy for the winning team. NS2 already has a soft timer with the 3rd hive. Marines need to win or prevent the third hive. When aliens do have that third hive, it is usually a painfully slow slog fest into a turtle fest that ends in a win. This final slog turtle fest for either team is the worst part of the game. It happens when marines are winning too, but aliens have less tools than marines to actually end the game. Even then, neither team can end the game quick enough, at least in my unpopular opinion. I know you disagree with this.
What I want is simple. We already have this soft timer. I want the game to end VERY quickly once we get there, not have a painful last stand. I propose to do that by giving each team very overpowered late game tools to end the game so that when a team reaches late game tech they can press for a win very quickly. The losing team can concede, but if they want to keep trying they have to hurry, rather than have a 5-30 minute last stand.
I have linked the other thread because it is the same words used for the same subject that we are talking about in two different threads.
What usually happens is that the onos plays defensive and keeps on stomping, it does damage and maybe he can get kills. It would be better if it didnt do any damage, because then there's less incentive to spam it.
And in that regard, devour is a much better tool
I agree that rounds should be concluded faster, but the solution should be organic. The soft timer feels that, because it's the result of gathered res+tech. Anything beyond that would be artificial and out of place.
Rerailing back to the original thread of @Mouse, the problem with those 2nd tier abilities is that it creates unnecessary complexity for the task of ending the game earlier.
There are several "build a wonder for N res" ideas out there, those can be weaved into the (pseudo)story and also work as the hard timer for the marine side. Idk, like "Build commlink to orbital ion cannon for 200 res".
Aliens could have the objective to hold x% of the rooms. Push the marines out of the map with cysts. If less than 3 rooms are without (2/3?) cysts, aliens win. It can't be rushed, because it's expensive and can be cheaply countered. At least cysts would have some real purpose in the game
It wouldn't because in a balanced game only one team wins the first engagement at each res node, dictating whether marines can cap or shoot another res node after their natural. Everything isn't magically a draw because a game is balanced.
That's true for every round, not just balanced. What matters is the ratio, and after the first engagements can the team hold what ground they captured.
They can still get kills by fighting at the wrong locations, but lose enough map control that the other team can exploit that and win the round.
My hope is that ns3 would have marines upgrade their cc to unlock different tech paths similar to how aliens choose a hive type that decides their tech path, more ccs you build the more tech you can access.
Currently aliens need tech points and marines need to stop aliens getting tech points. They should both need them.
Already did that, was dumb.
I have a mod that looked promising called Victory Points. Basically teams would get +1 point every 15 seconds for each fully build comm building. First team to 250 points wins.Playtested it over a month, yet It never seemed to do anything other than the occasional game where you see the other team is at 200 points and your team has no hope in catching up.
And when the entire map is covered in permanent infestation (which could recede on hive death), it starts some kind of loss timer that would just force marines to lose if they don't immediately get their shit together.
So like 1 hive woth 3 biomass would take 45 minutes, 2 hives with 3 biomass would take 25 minutes, and 3 hives would take 10 minutes. Or some shit...
I'm not a huge fan of the idea overall, but I'm super into anything that brings more emphasis to getting hives earlier, and the importance of denying them.
Would also be nice if hives were on a set build-time like ns1, such that gorges can only heal not build it. It let's that 3 minute period of 2nd hive building be the most pivotal point in every round. It's something I really miss from NS1 that I think should have always stayed in NS2.
Some ideas like this that make the "goal" of the game more fluid without needing to add overpowered abilities and such. Like alien goal is to take over the station, not necessarily to just eradicate the marines. But it's opposite for marines, they gotta kill allll the shit