Canabalism
Ripur
Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 7193Members
Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 7193Members
<div class="IPBDescription">no realy, i'm serious</div> This change of having marines drop weapons and ammo upon death got me thinking. The aliens must spend more res during the game than the marines, mainly because of the ability to pickup dropped items. In theory, if I drop 5 shot guns as a commander I could keep those weapons in circulation among my team till the games end. Unless a marine dies very deep into alien territory, the chances of another rine (or even the same rine) running back and picking up a dropped weapon is great.
If I as an alien evolve into a higher life form and die, that res is gone. I’m not getting it back period.
So my suggestion is that when a higher life form dies, their body stays around for a while. If a skulk can get to the corpse and eat it, they will regain the res via consumption of base elements. The body can be consumed by any skulk (possibly by any class?) so that higher life forms can come around more often.
The consumption system would probably be a flat rate, so that it take longer to regain all of the res in an onos than it would a lerk or gorge. It could also be implemented so not all the res can be regained, penalizing them for dieing in the first place.
This system could also open the door to removing that awful rfk ( I might add that marines get the best of both worlds right now) and promote area control as apposed to constant rushing.
This idea is not for any class to gain health or stat bonuses like previous threads have suggested. it is just to give aliens a way to recoupe some res like marines can
If I as an alien evolve into a higher life form and die, that res is gone. I’m not getting it back period.
So my suggestion is that when a higher life form dies, their body stays around for a while. If a skulk can get to the corpse and eat it, they will regain the res via consumption of base elements. The body can be consumed by any skulk (possibly by any class?) so that higher life forms can come around more often.
The consumption system would probably be a flat rate, so that it take longer to regain all of the res in an onos than it would a lerk or gorge. It could also be implemented so not all the res can be regained, penalizing them for dieing in the first place.
This system could also open the door to removing that awful rfk ( I might add that marines get the best of both worlds right now) and promote area control as apposed to constant rushing.
This idea is not for any class to gain health or stat bonuses like previous threads have suggested. it is just to give aliens a way to recoupe some res like marines can
Comments
The darker side of this could be:
- Higher lifeforms get less support
- team killers (blockers etc.) get a bonus from this and benefit from the deaths of their teammates.
And doing that would take out all the purpose of killing high lifeforms.
As for the argument that killing higher lifeforms means nothing, that is wrong. By that argument, i should not try to kill a shot gun marine becuase his buddy is there an can pick up the shot gun. Of course i'm going to kill him. there will be more shotgun marines, but it's not about the marine, it's about controling an area.
And think what this will do for res whoring. Some jerk res****s by sitting in teh hive, afk, till he can go fade. he goes fade, walks out of the hive, gets killed by 2 lmg marines becuase he is an idiot. Instead of 50 res going down the drain, his team can recoup part, if not all of the loss, and put that res to good use.
If the higher life form dies in a marine outpost, then it will be hard for aliens to get that res back. if the alien dies defending the hive, chances are his res will be saved quickly. this happens on the marine team all the time, every game.
<ul>
</li><li>Non-lethal marine weapons (nets, stun guns)
<span style='color:red'><b></li><li>Corpse-usage (getting health, getting res, etc.)</b></span>
</li><li>Rocket Launchers
</li><li>Controllable turrets (Siege or otherwise)
</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
but i still feel the issue of rines not losing res on death needs to be addressed.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The aliens must spend more res during the game than the marines, mainly because of the ability to pickup dropped items.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not true. At all. The Commander <i>seems</i> to spend less res, but you have to remember that the Marines utilize a combines res pool with input from evert RT and any Marines earning RFK. The Aliens, on the other hand, have their own res pools and must scale and spend resources accordingly. And seeing as an individual pool encourages individual purchases, the typical Kharran lieform is more expensive and more durable than a single Marine counterpart. The thing is, the Kharra technically have more resources to utilize, but much less upgrades and structures to spend it on.
If you send out a small group of rines, one with an advanced weapon and the rest vanilla killing the advanced rine would not take out the weapon. Anyone of the marines around him has a chance to save that weapon therefor save the res invested into it. if a gorge, and soem skulks attack and the gorge dies, his res is just gone and there is no chance to save his res.
it is hard to compare becuase aliens get attacks and amour depending on the evolve, but think of it like this. There is a dected out HA/HMG rine with welder. For the gear alone thats about 50~60 res (don't now the prices off the top of my head). He, through some misfortune dies. That HA is gone and so is all the res invested into it, but the gun and welder stay for any other marine to attempt to pick up. Think how short end games wold be if turtled rines lost the weapons they had, even though they died right in MS. I can't tell you how many times i've spawned in and instantly picked up an HMG dropped by another player seconds before. I may not use it instantly, but i have it at NO res cost to the com.
I would love to have some way to track ever res gained and spent in a regular NS game to prove/disprove my res survivabilty theory. becuase from what i've seen of onos, fades, and lerks dieing end and mid game vs. hmgs and shotties dieing then being picked up It strikes me that the com has to spend far less to keep his forces strong than what the alien must spend collectivly.
I actually agree with this strongly.
I still feel however the res system cuases more problems than anything else in the game. Marines res is more potent, longer lasting, easier to control, and recoupable. Alien res is the exact opposite! Sure the individaul alien has more poteintal in the game, but the individual alien has become less and less signifcant in favor of team play. Look at CO. If we used v1.04 stats for CO aliens would win every time. The aliens have been restructured with the idea that they need to work as a team to get things done. They have become more like the rines in some senses. there is an X factor in all conflicts called 'skill' so it's hard who to say is best, but people can generally agree that skulks are equal to vanilla rines. fades are roughly equal to a group of shottie rines or a Shottie/HA rine. onos are about as strong as HMG/JPer. Roughly and up to much argument i'm sure, but aliens are not indiviudally as capable as they once were.
So this is why i argue the aliens need this ability to retain their res. They have become more team oriented and less individualistic. If you need to keep alien x, y, and z around to effectivly assualt a marine base, then yo are going to need to keep a more viable option to the alien team then controling 8/10 of the res nodes on the map.
Skulks need a buff in armor, maybe increase it back to 20, so early games get balanced again, spawn camping is less effectiv and the res problem gets solved. Like meatshield said: stronger skulk would be able to defend res nodes better -> more res -> more higher lifeforms.
And if I remember correctly: In the manual is written that a skulk is stronger than a lonely marine. Today he is only LMG food and a victim.
And please don´t reply now like: You have to ambush...
Skulks need a buff in armor, maybe increase it back to 20, so early games get balanced again, spawn camping is less effectiv and the res problem gets solved. Like meatshield said: stronger skulk would be able to defend res nodes better -> more res -> more higher lifeforms.
And if I remember correctly: In the manual is written that a skulk is stronger than a lonely marine. Today he is only LMG food and a victim.
And please don´t reply now like: You have to ambush...
I am a big supporter of using the skulk as an ambushing unit so i don't want to see changes to the skulks armour till after the removal of knock back has been judged. Most of my deaths as a skulk come after the marine goes flying from my first bite, so no knockback + more armour might equal constant skulk rushing, but we won't know till it happens.
If higher lifeforms were easier to kill (and cost les res), then I can see something like cannabalism coming into the game. However, right now, that's not the case. Well, Onos is kinda easy is certain terrain, but with stomp and corners he can still be king. Think how connection between processing and Holoroom in Hera. But Onos being a bit too weak (and too inexpensive) is another topic.
I my eyes there are 2 major issues in alien play:
- getting spawn camped
- early games: skulks
In my opinion there are 2 possibilities how to fix this issues:
<b>either increase their armor again to make them live longer.</b>
or increase spawn rate a little bit. This would encourage teamplay as well, because more aliens are at the same time at the same location (near the hive) alive to be able to coordinate attacks. Marines still would be able to whipe out
those crappy skulks but they would be so many to maybe defeat em and the death of 1 skulk is meanless.
at the moment skulks are only good for 2 things:
- Chomp chomp the RT
- Camp for marines to ambush em and luckily killing
I know, it?s a matter of skill differences when 1 skulk kills 4 marines in a row. I know that it happens. But this normally only happens in public games when this difference is quite big. It?s more realistic to say that 1 marine kills the whole alien team than 1 skulk will do.
I would much rather see faster spawning be implemnted before more armour by the way.
I agree that higherlifeforms used properly, are very survivable. I've seen fades go into a squads of rines and just clean house. I've also knifed a fade todeath becuse he was a noob and couldn't aim. Under the alien res system, when a mistake is made resulting in death the alien team feels it. They no longer have a fade or lerk to help out until the res is saved up for someone else go evlove. Marines don't suffer from that becuase they can save their weapon and don't have to wait for res to build before they can get another one.
Skill does play a bigger role for aliens than rines (how hard is it to use HA? not hard at all) but when you make a mistake it costs you far more as an alien than it does a rine.
I have come up with another possible suggestion. If the aliens and marines are to be different down to the way they manage their res system, why not remove marines' rfk?
Hear me out now. I don't like RFK period, but it would make the teams more distinct. We are all use to playing with rfk as aliens, but i feel losing it would greatly effect the rines stratiges. First off it would incourage team work for the rines and discourage ramboing. It is possible to go off on your own as a rine witha shot gun; kick **** and take names. When you die, you lose your shottie somewhere away from the support of your team, so it's lost. But if you killed say 3 skulks before you died (not that difficult or unlikely) you have a good chance of getting a new shottie without the comm feeling any sense of loss. With this change that doesn't happen. Comm hands out some shotties, marines get seprated and die after killing many skulks. The comm goes to do some research and he is 10 res short of where is res count would be had he had rfk. When marines travel as a team, someone goes down, but the weapon and res can be saved. Now marines individual skill isn't as important as now, more weight falls on the comm's strategy and res management
So aliens res system is fast paced earn and burn, while the marines system is more conservative. They can't have more res than what their RTs allow, but they don't nessicarly lose anything if the com is smart and keeps his team togather.
A modification on your idea:
An alien can salvage only their own corpses. No teammate other than you can salvage your own corpse. In addition, it doesn't matter what lifeform you are (skulk, gorge, lerk, etc.) - you can salvage your corpse in any lifeform.
I like the idea of canabalism. I know it seems to be frowned upon by the devs right now but maybe they had something else in mind when they made that statement. Kind of like how if Jefferson were to read the constitution today he might say "WTH?" Don't get discouraged and drop the idea.
It would be a great addition to a res system overhaul. As you guys mentioned, when the alien team loses their only fade it's sometimes a mortal blow. Being able to recoup as much as 10 or 15 res from the fade's death can turn a game gone bad into a fun "you won't believe what hapened!" game. This would benefit large games the most, and that is where the aliens are hurting the most. Res flow is low and very precious.
Also, removing RFK for marines IS a good balancing feature... It promotes sticking together which is the most fundamental and powerful marine tactic. Unfortunately it's also the hardest to get your marines to go along with. By putting more emphasis on staying together maybe more people will do it. RFK isn't that crucial in small games so it's loss won't be crippling. In larger games it has larger effect but i'm of the opinion that marines have a clear advantage in larger games as it is.
I'd want to see RFK for marines removed before any other res changes such as cannibalism. I still want to see cannibalism too though... I think it fits the atmosphere.
and maybe i just want to lay a mine trap under the dead fade just to watch a hopefull skulk explode.
and maybe i just want to lay a mine trap under the dead fade just to watch a hopefull skulk explode. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
perfect!