A different, high-level approach to the Alien Commander
StixNStonz
Join Date: 2006-11-06 Member: 58439Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2006-11-06 Member: 58439Members, Reinforced - Shadow
This actually spawned from someone in-game saying, 'Listen commander, when I say I need something you give it to me! That's what you do!'
And then, of course, pretty much everyone telling him that that is the opposite of what the commander does.
Basically, the marines work for the marine commander. He Runs The Show. He tells them where to go, decides the resources each marine is given for each push, distributes the forces and meds, etc.
What about if the Alien Commander is the polar opposite of this? Where, from a high-level design perspective, he works for the team rather than the reverse?
It sounds as if this is already the approach, it's just that I haven't heard anyone explain it as such. It's almost like the Gorge in the unequal-res-distribution days; you could only get (well, afford) one Gorge at a time, but he was supporting the alien team, not commanding them. He was the backbone, not the head.
Anyway, food for thought.
And then, of course, pretty much everyone telling him that that is the opposite of what the commander does.
Basically, the marines work for the marine commander. He Runs The Show. He tells them where to go, decides the resources each marine is given for each push, distributes the forces and meds, etc.
What about if the Alien Commander is the polar opposite of this? Where, from a high-level design perspective, he works for the team rather than the reverse?
It sounds as if this is already the approach, it's just that I haven't heard anyone explain it as such. It's almost like the Gorge in the unequal-res-distribution days; you could only get (well, afford) one Gorge at a time, but he was supporting the alien team, not commanding them. He was the backbone, not the head.
Anyway, food for thought.
Comments
Got any specific ideas, though?
Edit: Although, to be honest, it's worrying to me if the developers don't already have a rather good idea (ie. almost set in stone) of where they wanna take the gameplay, at this stage. Then again, you can make art assets and code the basic gameplay mechanics regardless of that, but still. Seems like a sloppy way to design.
I think they're picking the alien commander to adress a lot of balance and gameplay issues related to the alien res system and lack of leadership. Picking a commander that doesn't do anything but support doesn't help there. At that point I'd rather do without the whole commander because of the assymmetry.
Ok. Well, for starters, the Marine Comm controls the marine res (despite the changes we're hearing where marines will be able to buy their own weapons somehow). The Aliens, I'm assuming, will still control their own individual res. I think it's best to be kept that way for asymmetry.
Take the current Gorge as a near-example. Gorges in no way command the team. They support. A fade may take a room, and then order the gorges up to secure it; or they may order a fade to take the room so they can secure it. There's no real forced, one-way dependency. The fades can take and hold rooms temporarily, the gorges can secure them more permanently.
Perhaps the Alien Commander could be more considered a King Gorge. He could have specific bonuses and abilities that make him more useful for certain tasks than normal gorges, and the only player able to do other tasks.
Dynamic Infestation is the most obvious special ability. It sounds like it will be the backbone of any territorial control for the aliens; perhaps the Alien Comm can use his Map interactively to place Infestation nodes within a certain distance of himself (maybe the range of a siege cannon). These would then slowly build out Infestation, allowing the alien comm to start the process in rooms he cannot or is choosing not to reach yet.
He could also have the ability to quicken the process via healspray (or some such means so that he does it faster in-person), and has some kind of specialized resource (like an obs' energy) for the DI so it's not just spammed.
This is an example of how DI can be used for the alien comm so that he's a bottom-up comm, not a top-down one. He's special and in charge of something very important, but he does not control res. Instead, he controls a fairly significant boost for the alien team, and can direct at least some of the alien forces to maximize their combined strength.
There's a thousand different upgrades and abilities the alien comm could have that could follow suit. How about a nearby +20% energy recharge for aliens, with innate regen doubled up as well?
I'm not sure how individual the alien res will be. At least I see the better res control as one of the biggest advantages of having a commander.
Right now aliens have the res peak as a limiting factor. It's different than in most RTSes, but it's also relatively limited in many ways. For example the marine commander can practically predict when the 2nd hive is dropped and killing a lerk will most often result in the total absense of lerk for the next 30 res. With unified res model the aliens could have a lot more flexible strategies at least.
Of course the strict peak res system is interesting and fun in its own way, but I feel it could use a little fine tuning to add more options to it. A combination of individual pools and the commander pool might be a choise there. It's not very asymmetrical, but I'd I feel we should take advantage of having the commander instead of bumping into the problems on NS1 all over again.
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/asrifle.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::asrifle::" border="0" alt="asrifle.gif" />
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/asrifle.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::asrifle::" border="0" alt="asrifle.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tiny.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::onos::" border="0" alt="tiny.gif" />
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/asrifle.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::asrifle::" border="0" alt="asrifle.gif" />
"2 Fades + Gorge" is also an interresing combo available for just 90 res.
Assuming aliens retain the same abilities in NS2; The only things left for an alien commander to do is:
1. Control Dynamic Infestation
2. Activate special abilities/spells
3. Create Alien tunnels
4. Provide intel./coordinate attacks
<b><!--coloro:#F4A460--><span style="color:#F4A460"><!--/coloro-->The trick is to take control of the gameplay flow away from the alien commander and put it in the hands of the alien team. Here's some ideas that I believe will do just that.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b>
<u><b>The primary focus for the alien commander is Dynamic Infestation!</b></u>
(Alien commander abilities should only be enabled in areas that are infested.)
The alien commander should be able to control the "SLOW" flow of the DI from the hive out into the map, but infestation can only grow within a certain range of the hive. This is where it becomes possible for <b>"<!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->seeding<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->"</b> to take place.
A gorge can move into a new area and place a "Seed" that will begin infesting that area at an increased rate.
Once the area has grown infestation, the commander gains the use of his abilities in this location.
<!--coloro:#00BFFF--><span style="color:#00BFFF"><!--/coloro--><b>The alien players now have control over where in the map they want to go. It has to be a team decision to advance and infest.</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> Only a Gorge can "Seed", and a gorge needs protection from other aliens to do this successfully.(unless its a ninja gorge) The seed could be a structure that can be destroyed. This gives the marine team the option to destroy the "Seed" and kill all the infestation in that area without spending all day torching the walls.
As for the commander res, I think maybe there could be a separate pool of res. This pool replenishes based on how many hives/players there are and maybe gets res/4kills or something like that. This res could be used to activate abilities/spells or for building alien tunnels.
To give the alien comm some more options, he could use chambers that have been placed by gorges. There could be countless special chamber abilities that he could activate here to help nearby aliens. Chambers could have their own "energy" that is used for abilities.
<!--coloro:#00BFFF--><span style="color:#00BFFF"><!--/coloro-->If done right, the alien commander will be a very important part of the alien strategy and will be kept very busy. However, he will not be the controlling force of the team and idealy will be the "opposite" of the marine commander. <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
The Alien Comm should possess lots of abilities that make it easier for aliens to set up ambushes and support those ambushes and so on, if the majority of the AC abilities are like that, he or she relies on the aliens to track down the marines so the alien player on the ground basically provides the first steps for the ambush and the AC coordinates it just a little.
Giving the Marines the possibilty to buy their own weapons they somehow making them more individually, I dont like it.
I've always been a fan of Gorges and how they are intentionally the support unit. However, what gets most people is the time gaps between being able to do things (i.e. drop a building, wait for res, drop building, wait for res) which is why many people hate being the dedicated Gorge.
This concept for a AC looks like it will cover this issue, keeping the player busy and their experience intense. I think.
so by having a alien commander could actually alter the game play in various ways!
anyway here are some ideas i have come up with for the Gorge in the Hive <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
- the ability to see the hives HP and Armor in numbers
- the ability to provide special upgrades for the hive and chambers
-HP upgrade; max level 5 increasing the Hives HP by 20 each level; upgrade cost's 30/40/50/60/70/80 resources
-Armor upgrade; max level 3 increasing the Hives armor by 50 each level; upgrade cost's 20/40/60
-HP regeneration upgrade; max level 1 increasing the amount of hp regenerated per second; upgrade cost's 50 resources
-Upgrades for chambers should give them more ability's replacing their old ones
-offense chamber 2 can have a stronger but slower attack
-offense chamber 2 it loses its ability to attack but uses its spikes as land mines instead the ability is used as a gorge mounts it each tower should have a limit to how many spikes it can use also it should have a slow firing rate like the GL
-defense chamber can provide extra armor for units around it
-movement chamber can increase the speed of morphing (this effect shouldn't stack)
-sensory chamber should be able to provide the ability to slow down the marines near it