Temporary Hydras

2

Comments

  • A[L]CA[L]C Join Date: 2010-07-25 Member: 72801Members
    To me, turret spam is a lot more annoying at the moment.

    And gorges are becoming less and less useful.
  • VeNeMVeNeM Join Date: 2002-07-13 Member: 928Members
    who is coming up with these ideas..

    heres an idea, how about marine marine bullets effective only within a certain range.
    or make the hive continously lose health if a gorge isnt heal spraying it
    or make the com chair not function if there is no armory

    better yet, lets make the eggs not function if there are too many players on the server.
  • VeNeMVeNeM Join Date: 2002-07-13 Member: 928Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1855694:date=Jun 23 2011, 05:24 AM:name=Jiriki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jiriki @ Jun 23 2011, 05:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1855694"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think temporary hydras are one of the better suggestions. Nothing in NS1/2 is more annoying than a stalemate of hydras and turrets.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


    seriously? marines have so many counters to hydras its not even funny. flames render them useless, gls can effectively waste them from long range, arcs desimate them, a smart marine squad can just shoot the things to death and take little to no damage. hell ive seen lone marines just run through them. turrets if placed properly are a thousand times better in just about every way.
  • ZycaRZycaR Join Date: 2002-11-12 Member: 8263Members
    edited June 2011
    <b>Hydras </b>need to expire after time, the Hive commander can re-seed them before they die (and spend some TRes)
    Also the <b>turrets</b> will go out of bullets .. and can be re-loaded by commander (also spend TRes)

    How to re-seed / re-load ? commander must click on that "unit/building" and in menu will have button to do this action.
    This can be also re-searchable (maybe in crag?)

    ... this re-seed / re-load mechanic is great think to draw off some TRes from pool in later games.
    i.e. the aliens cower 4/5 of map and have hydras everywhere ... then commander need to re-seed each of them after some time.
    the more hydras / turrets the team have .. the more TRes will be spend (and they will not stock as now)
  • Chris0132Chris0132 Join Date: 2009-07-25 Member: 68262Members
    Clicking every hydra on the map once every couple of minutes to solve a resource abundance problem, as opposed to, oh I don't know, cutting the resource flow a little bit?
  • ZycaRZycaR Join Date: 2002-11-12 Member: 8263Members
    Or leave it as is .. and they will die :D
  • peregrinusperegrinus Join Date: 2010-07-16 Member: 72445Members
    I don't think there is even a problem with hydras at the moment. IMO this ranks really far down the list with other things to be changed/added after 1.0 is out.

    Hydras work, the animations are excellent, and they serve a purpose which cannot be replaced by other alien structures.

    If there are no nearby crags, marines can take down hydras with pistols from a distance. If there are crags, marines can take out the crag easily with shotguns, and flame/gl the hydras very easily. If hydras are temporary then there is no way to defend a hive without having aliens camping there. Putting hydras around a hive is the only way to protect it with some force. Whips are more of a deterrent to marines, they can be ignored much of the time.

    Its 70% alien wins but this is not the way to balance it. Improve the server/game performance so marines can be more effective, and improve the team communication options so people stick in squads. If marines work together they easily overcome aliens. Whereas if aliens work together its still bloody hard to deal with a room filled with sentries.
  • ZurikiZuriki Join Date: 2010-11-20 Member: 75105Members
    Whips are so useless I only ever place one, for the upgrades. For everything else I place forward crags and tell gorge to hydra the place up.
  • Vladimir Van VodkaVladimir Van Vodka Sexy Beast Join Date: 2010-07-30 Member: 73364Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    <!--quoteo(post=1855694:date=Jun 23 2011, 02:54 PM:name=Jiriki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jiriki @ Jun 23 2011, 02:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1855694"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think temporary hydras are one of the better suggestions. Nothing in NS1/2 is more annoying than a stalemate of hydras and turrets.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    turrets are the problem when it comes to stalemates, not hydras.

    <!--quoteo(post=1855718:date=Jun 23 2011, 04:36 PM:name=A[L]C)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (A[L]C @ Jun 23 2011, 04:36 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1855718"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
    To me, turret spam is a lot more annoying at the moment.

    And gorges are becoming less and less useful.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Aight first part is true, but the gorge is extremely useful, he fits the role of both as the b***ard son of these two:
    <img src="http://tf2wiki.net/w/images/thumb/d/d8/Engineer.png/300px-Engineer.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /><img src="http://tf2wiki.net/w/images/thumb/2/26/Medic.png/300px-Medic.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />

    <!--quoteo(post=1855727:date=Jun 23 2011, 04:59 PM:name=ZycaR)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ZycaR @ Jun 23 2011, 04:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1855727"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><b>Hydras </b>need to expire after time, the Hive commander can re-seed them before they die (and spend some TRes)
    Also the <b>turrets</b> will go out of bullets .. and can be re-loaded by commander (also spend TRes)

    How to re-seed / re-load ? commander must click on that "unit/building" and in menu will have button to do this action.
    This can be also re-searchable (maybe in crag?)

    ... this re-seed / re-load mechanic is great think to draw off some TRes from pool in later games.
    i.e. the aliens cower 4/5 of map and have hydras everywhere ... then commander need to re-seed each of them after some time.
    the more hydras / turrets the team have .. the more TRes will be spend (and they will not stock as now)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    If hydras become expirable, so should turrets, however being replenish-able seems like a chore for the commander, but I prefer this to making only hydras temporary. Good Idea overall.
  • ZycaRZycaR Join Date: 2002-11-12 Member: 8263Members
    chore ? I don't think, you can have more than one commander :) .. or you can leave it, and it will not fire / die :)

    anyway ... there will be always stuff to do after everything is done / build .. and also spend your TRes
  • ZurikiZuriki Join Date: 2010-11-20 Member: 75105Members
    Doesn't matter how many commanders you have, it's a chore.
  • hf_hf_ Join Date: 2011-06-10 Member: 103639Members
    The current RFK resource model has done a good job limiting hydra spam. Even if you have three gorges that spend all of their PR on hydras over the course of the game, you're only getting about 15-18 total. If you make gorges have the ability of placing permanent infestation at a PR cost, you'll see even less hydras on the map. I think this is the way to go as opposed to making them temporary objects. This would be very frustrating on the part of the gorge to have to go back and re-plant hydras because they've simply "expired".

    Hydras are easy enough to destroy with grenade launchers and ARCs. You rarely see a marine team unable to destroy a hive because there are too many hydras. However, marines aren't just going to run blindly into the hive while ignoring the alien defenses. The balance may need slight tweaking, but I like the overall concept as it is now.
  • DrownDrown Underwater Join Date: 2002-12-02 Member: 10392Members
    I'm for this change actually.. but with a few small thoughts...

    If hydras will be on a three or four minute timer add a feature that when it decays the resources return to the player who built it... or better yet, have it work like an investment type effect... if the hydra is not killed it actually generates extra commander resources when it decays. 6 or 8 seems an appropriate cost given that architecture.
  • VeNeMVeNeM Join Date: 2002-07-13 Member: 928Members
    if this gets implemented.. wow
  • Enhance89Enhance89 Join Date: 2009-11-04 Member: 69261Members
    edited June 2011
    <!--quoteo(post=1855790:date=Jun 23 2011, 10:25 AM:name=VeNeM)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (VeNeM @ Jun 23 2011, 10:25 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1855790"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->if this gets implemented.. wow<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Agreed.

    I don't see the appeal, people. Color me a pessimist but it just seems wrong. We want to limit hydra spam (which currently isn't as big of a problem as turret spam) and give them a damage and health increase. Essentially this means every time a base or something is under attack, alien gorges have to rush to defend and then place hydras. God forbid it's a long, drawn out fight, because then the hydras will have to be replaced every couple of minutes.

    Furthermore, you'd almost HAVE to drastically increase the whip effectiveness or come up with an entirely new alien defense because the hydras have been rendered useless for securing a position. And what's going to stop gorges from just sitting in one place, putting down as many hydras as possible? And because they'll be stronger they'll probably get more kills, which means more res and they have to sit there and keep dropping hydras to defend or attack a position.

    I'm sorry, but it's really not a good idea. I also don't think some of you consider the work involved with this idea especially if they have to create an entirely new alien defense system that doesn't throw off the balance of the game even further.

    It's a bad idea imho. Keep them as they are, just limit how many you can put in an area like NS1 did and then do the same for turrets.
  • PapayasPapayas Join Date: 2010-07-01 Member: 72219Members
    Whips are crap and really need an improvement.

    Give whips improved health regeneration.
    Give whips more armour.
    Give whips more health.
    Give whips more damage (Enough to 1 hit a standard marine with no armour, whip would get extra damage with the damage upgrades that you can buy with it for the aliens currently)
    Give whips a knockback effect or stun effect (Stun would allow it to get multiple hits on its current target)
    Give whips a bit more range.
  • peregrinusperegrinus Join Date: 2010-07-16 Member: 72445Members
    Agree on all points, Papayas.
  • LazerLazer Join Date: 2003-03-11 Member: 14406Members, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester
    <!--quoteo(post=1855790:date=Jun 23 2011, 10:25 AM:name=VeNeM)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (VeNeM @ Jun 23 2011, 10:25 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1855790"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->if this gets implemented.. wow<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Yeah.. hydra's haven't been an issue since many patches ago. If anything the latest patch makes them a bit expensive for the gorge already putting major limitation on how many you can make (personal res is pretty slow, <i>and</i> we'll get pustules now). There's so many other things that are actually imbalanced to focus on, please just leave the hydra alone. I see no justification to this, maybe back 10+ patches ago when gorges could have enough res to put 30 in a room, but right now a gorge is lucky if he's even got enough to res to put 3 near each other...
  • ASnogarDASnogarD Join Date: 2003-10-24 Member: 21894Members
    Short answer: No , do not support temperary buildings!

    Longer answer ?

    I would much prefer a limit to the number of Hydra's I could deploy as a Gorge than only be able to deploy time limited buildings.
    I tend to place my static defences in areas I want to defend without my presence, ie a few in the Hive to discourage a lone marine hacking which results in half the team aborting an attack.
    Temperary hydras would make them another weapon of the gorge rather than a building you deploy tactically to defend / delay incursion of areas .

    ... in short, rather make a hard limit to the number of Hydras a single Gorge can deploy rather than make the Hydras temporary.

    One idea though , make it that if the gorge that deployed a Hydra is out of Gorge form for say...120 secs then all Hydras deployed by that Gorge wilt and die off.
    Prevents players going Gorge , spamming Hydras and then going to a different class leaving a pile of Hydras about the place.
    ( 120 secs to give enought time for a dead gorge to res and evolve back to a gorge ).
  • QuovatisQuovatis Team Inversion Join Date: 2010-01-26 Member: 70321Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    Whips are way too easy to avoid. With the only ranged static defense aliens have gone (hydras), hives and harvesters will easily go down to ninja marines. Contrast that to the marines who have permanent static defense. Not fair at all and a really bad idea IMHO.
  • lunsluns Join Date: 2010-12-05 Member: 75502Members
    edited June 2011
    <!--quoteo(post=1855811:date=Jun 23 2011, 05:33 PM:name=Quovatis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Quovatis @ Jun 23 2011, 05:33 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1855811"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Whips are way too easy to avoid. With the only ranged static defense aliens have gone (hydras), hives and harvesters will easily go down to ninja marines. Contrast that to the marines who have permanent static defense. Not fair at all and a really bad idea IMHO.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    whips should have some sort of long range ability, something which can work in passive mode while marines were detected.

    some ideas some long range abilities

    1. whips can shoot parasites, this would alert every alien where marines are - parasited marines MUST be displayed on the mini-map for every alien
    2. shoots sticky goo, this would slow the marines movement
    3. once marines moves out of sight, the whip would crawl under the infestation for hiding - only way it can be detected naturally by scan

    -

    turret spam needs to be addressed, ns1 solved the problem with turret factory, but now it hasn't been addressed at all yet.
  • CerebralCerebral Join Date: 2003-06-25 Member: 17689Members
    My vote is to limit the number in a specific area and maybe make them a little easier to kill as a vanilla marine. I feel like the hitboxes on them aren't great right now. If the hitbox encompassed the entire model and you could only have 3 or so in a specific radius, they really wouldn't be much of a problem.
  • PapayasPapayas Join Date: 2010-07-01 Member: 72219Members
    I rarely get hit by a whip in most of the games I play.
    Barely anyone uses the whip as a form of proper defense and if I see a whip I can easily kill it from a distance because there is a lack of positions that a whip can be placed to be effective.
    Turret factories also need to be introduced into the game as well to prevent the turret spam. Maybe add a limit to how many turrets you can have in the area of a turret factory.
  • LORFCASTERLORFCASTER Join Date: 2010-06-13 Member: 72049Members
    Setting up well placed buildings on improved geometry is one of the most significant things i got excited about for this game.
    Ive grown quite attached to doing this for the time ive been playing (even though gorge has, so far, been very restricted in the surface area it can access)

    <b>Of course hydras will be very important either way, but if this does get implemented it will be discouraging to know that after putting so much thought/effort/calculations into setting up, that everything will just end up dying on it's own and out of my control.</b>



    They.
  • kingmobkingmob Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 3650Members, Constellation
    Hydras are close to worthless.
    If they expire I am not going to build them at all.

    I only play gorge for temporary bits to build stuff or heal it.
    Then I switch back to skulk and get things done.

    Cap hydra count and sentry count to a number that is a multiplier of command-chair/hive.

    Hydras = 6 x hive count
    Turrets = 4 x command chair

    Caps Caps Caps
    Not a new concept ...totally RTS
    "Spawn more Overlords"

    Build Hydra -> "Build more hives"

    drives expansion too
  • PapayasPapayas Join Date: 2010-07-01 Member: 72219Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1855817:date=Jun 23 2011, 06:47 PM:name=luns)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (luns @ Jun 23 2011, 06:47 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1855817"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->3. once marines moves out of sight, the whip would crawl under the infestation for hiding - only way it can be detected naturally by scan<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    That would be cool, then maybe it could be used as traps. If someone walks near it the tentacle comes out of the Infestation and hits them. After they haven't attacked for ~5 seconds the tentacle will then go back into the Infestation to attack someone again.
  • NurEinMenschNurEinMensch Join Date: 2003-02-26 Member: 14056Members, Constellation
    Bad idea for reasons stated abundantly.
  • AsranielAsraniel Join Date: 2002-06-03 Member: 724Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
    just to add to it. Don't like the idea.
    Also, whips are useless right now, far too easy to kill (secondary pistol fire takes them down soooo fast).
  • MuYeahMuYeah Join Date: 2006-12-26 Member: 59261Members
    edited June 2011
    I <b>love</b> the idea! Why should you be allowed to fire and forget while playing as an on the ground support class? They are not the commander of the alien team any more. This idea adds much needed depth to the gorge class by keeping it dynamic. Temporary hydras means you need to constantly re-evaluate where you want to be fighting.

    The gorge/hydra relationship which has carried over from NS1 cannot be balanced for an RTS/FPS game because the relative costs and power of them varies so widely based on the number of players on each team. A fundamental change in how they work is required:
    <ul><li>Buff to health/damage</li><li>Each gorge can drop a maximum of 1, 2 or 3 (depending on balance/flavour of the ability the devs want to have [possibly increase with hive number to keep things interesting as the game progresses tech-wise])</li><li>Time limit ~60 seconds or so, then they wither and die. No slow loss of health.</li><li>Free to drop or very low cost if you don't want gorges to accumulate too much res throughout the game.</li></ul>
    edit: Alternate idea, no hard limit on number of hydras droppable, have them high cost but when they time out or are killed refund 100% of the cost back to the gorge. Basically a soft-cap of requiring the start-up cost. This would also let it scale throughout the game, but be tied to economy rather than tech (which would be the case with the other suggestion above).


    Now you've got a proper support class with the possibility for an alien team to make meaningful decisions when choosing how many gorges to have at which time. "A timing attack at 3 minutes would crush this build" -> "Lets get an extra gorge before hive2 is finished. It'll delay our offense by X time but the build will be more robust." It also continues to give the gorge a role throughout the game, if you want the benefit of hydras then you need a gorge.

    In NS1 the relative cost of OCs was way too high and it discouraged their use <b>a lot</b>. They were only good for defending against JPs late-game or if you had a very good early game you might be able to squeeze a few out to protect the second hive as it was building because of RFK and minimal res tower losses. In public games you had excessive OCs making it very difficult for marines to do anything until GLs and they could be maintained by only a couple gorges. Having each individual gorge only be able to drop X number of hydras removes the funky scaling you see with teamsize in NS1.

    I remember back in 2.01 we experimented a lot on ns_veil with taking both double nodes and an early OC as our opener but we never got it to work as well as we'd have liked, the cost was too high and the marines would just go to your hive and kill that res instead. Making hydras temporary is a buff for the alien team as it lets you keep your defense mobile around the map, which IMO fits in very nicely with the how the kharaa work.

    The up-point about how OCs worked in NS1 was their relative cost changing throughout the game. Once you had a second hive and a decent foothold on the res game they were suddenly a much more reasonable investment. Of course, they were never really a choice if you were playing against a good marine side who knew how to pressure because all that res would be going into RTs/on-map MCs and SCs/saving for fades. I guess a good way to view them would be being a conservative insurance option against marine come-backs by stopping sneaky phasegates that was used to extend your lead rather than a viable strategic option. By linking max hydra number to hives you simulate the changing relative cost throughout the game. Yeah it's not as RTS-y but I'm of the opinion that some things should be focused on the FPS side of the gameplay out of pragmatism - ease of use, skill curves etc. and in the specific case of hydras they cannot be balanced because of how relatively powerful they are at different team sizes.

    The reason why hydras should be such a low cost is that if you present the choice of hydra or lifeform then players will pick lifeform every time until hydras become overly powerful. This comes back to not being balanced because of variable team sizes. It's like the choice between upgrades or lifeform from NS1: People wouldn't use upgrades as skulks so they were made free.

    I want to see hydras used by every gorge as a part of their combat strategy. By removing the cost you remove the choice of committing to full hydra spam or only gorging temporarily to heal stuff and saving most of your res for a different lifeform. Suddenly you have people using this interesting ability. If hydras are dear then you can bet your life that in low player number games they won't be seen because the res is needed elsewhere.


    tl;dr: Temporary hydras are a buff to the alien team. The idea adds depth to the gorge role both strategically and tactically.


    It's basically about moving away from fat little guy who sits 30 miles behind the front line gardening. That role belongs to the alien comm now. I want to be able to main class gorge and not have it be a temporary form that only gets used in niche situations!
  • SewlekSewlek The programmer previously known as Schimmel Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
    <!--quoteo(post=1855798:date=Jun 23 2011, 11:51 AM:name=Papayas)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Papayas @ Jun 23 2011, 11:51 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1855798"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...
    Give whips a bit more range.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    this one at least :) its very difficult (almost impossible) to find a place for a whip where its effective (effective = hits 1 marine before killed...)
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