Whip idea
Digital_slap
Join Date: 2011-07-08 Member: 109007Members
Join Date: 2011-07-08 Member: 109007Members
*Update: 3:20pm CST*
So it seems the cloaked whip is generally liked. So it would go: when whip is created it burrows beneath the infestation becoming cloaked. Then it can only become attackable when a marine gets within its own attack radius. Perhaps allow the normal whips to be scannable, but let the upgraded whip not be scannable or a make a third upgrade for the whip that makes it unscannable. Adjust Res cost for the different upgrades accordingly.
*Update 3:46pm CST*
To make it more balanced for marines have the whip be vulnerable for a few seconds after it has revealed itself before it burrows back into the infestation.
So it seems the cloaked whip is generally liked. So it would go: when whip is created it burrows beneath the infestation becoming cloaked. Then it can only become attackable when a marine gets within its own attack radius. Perhaps allow the normal whips to be scannable, but let the upgraded whip not be scannable or a make a third upgrade for the whip that makes it unscannable. Adjust Res cost for the different upgrades accordingly.
*Update 3:46pm CST*
To make it more balanced for marines have the whip be vulnerable for a few seconds after it has revealed itself before it burrows back into the infestation.
Comments
dude that was funny/cool idea
i pictured them hiding under the cysts
making every marine tentative about approaching the cysts.
The whip should do ~half a marines health in 1 shot.
Have range ~ the diameter of a hive.
Have a lot of health
Have a Slow attack animation/Slower Attack Rate it should not be able to take out a whole fleet of marines, but it should be very strong against small amounts of marines.
allow the whips to be rooted under the infestation, marines cannot attack or see them. Once marines get closer to the whip it would start attacking them, if they move away it hides back into the infestation. Only way to attack the whip is to ask the commander for scan, which would reveal whip location, and marines now able to easily kill it.
this would mean once marines find the whip they can't just easily shoot it from distance, or attack it around corners.
same idea can be applied to cysts, allow them to be only revealed through scan, though an additional health boost is needed making them much tougher to take down. Other idea, cysts would take more damage from axe rather than bullets, in other words the axe can bring it down quicker but if you choice to shoot it, it would take much longer.
So far the best i've come up with is adding something along the lines of :
A mouth and snake like tongue (rolled up at the back of the throat or possibly out of sight) near the upper non curled part of the structure ( a very menacing mouth with lots of sharp rows of teeth of course :> orrr a funny manta ray mouth :D seeing as i couldn't find a use for the sharp teeth lol(edit: just thought of a use for the teeth, it could bite the marine once it's pulled it in. duh lol).
The basic idea would be for either the to tongue to have a small split at the end (or a small mace like growth or something) and be used as an extra long reach attack just like normal whip but would do less damage (just so that a marine can't stand still shooting or launching grenades in the the same spot).
Alternatively, the tongue could have a much longer split at the end, enabling it to wrap itself around a marine. It could then quite quickly pull itself to the marine it's attached to OR pull the marine in to it.
If it were to pull marines, i would definitely have it as usable only by a comm, plus a long cooldown (30 secs plus) and possibly have all whips in a certain range share the same cooldown. This would however still ( i think) encourage a lot more whip placement than seems to happen at the moment, as you would still put them everywhere you do now for hive defence etc. but you would have to find new spots for effective tongue pulls too :> AND it shouldn't be TOO hard to add it in, i think, maybe? lol
If it were to pull itself less limitations are needed as obviously it leaves itself a lot more exposed to enemy fire, croach would be the limit here though,maybe not allow it to pull itself off of it.
ALSO you could even possibly make this a replacement to their current slow walk to places, as currently, i just find that whips are so slow and exposed while walking, unless its just a few feet, my moving whips almost always die before they reach their destination, unless i watch them constantly on a long journey which is of course boring, and usually as commander it's better to spend that time doing something else.
anyway i hope something useful comes out that :>
This!!!!!
The biggest reason that whips are useless is that marines can effectively kill them at distance. The best you can do is try to hide them around corners, but even then I find many marines can still find the right angle to snipe them while not getting hit. Whips would be more effective if to kill them you needed to be in their firing range.
- Whips should do much more damage against structures, so aliens have incentive to risk walking them to front line areas.
- Whips should be able to whip sighted target around a structure, so you don't have situation where marines kill the hive and the hive is between the marines and the whip, shielding the marines.
- Whips idle animation should be a curled up like a snail position, lower on the ground not waving around high in the air for all to see and shoot.
Depends if Cloak is passive or active, otherwise even more babysitting.
I could imagine someone saying:
"Nothing that impairs a players movement"
"Nothing that impairs a players movement"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So... We can remove their vision instead! Or remove their abilities to attack! *evil chuckle*
The problem is, cloaking is not implemented in the game yet.
On the bright side, Whips ignore entities that block LoS, and hits all enemies in its range, and now deals double damage to structures. It is too bad they don't have the health to survive Sentries to be a siege unit.
Yeah, I want some footage of UWE <u>actually</u> using a whip as a siege unit.
We don't use it as a siege unit right now because its bombard range attack is still not hooked up and working.
--Cory
An idea I had was that bombard would lob a big bile bomb in the direction you aim it, but instead of exploding on contact, it bounces around randomly, so if you lob it through the door of a room, it bounces around the room and hits stuff in the room when it explodes.
Definitely needs a non-los requiring attack, as I can't see it being any use against sentry defended exits if it has to get shot at in order to kill anything.
Cloaked whips sound interesting but it might be a bit annoying if they can't be attacked without someone being killed by it, obvious solution is once infestation can be attacked directly by flamethrowers, they would cause whips to unburrow, but not sure how you do it in the short term.
the whips should not be cloaked but rather rooted under the infestation as I explained before. Only two ways whips can be exposed through scan, and when commander unroots them to move them to another location.
they made mistake thinking whips would get bile bomb, which many of the community members pointed out until they finally made the right choice, and gave the gorge bile bomb. bile bomb needs to be in the hands of mobile creature that can attack, and run away - the whip would die before it even reaches it target - its slow moving and way to exposed target. Now, we need to polish out gorge bile bomb effect as it was in ns1, and we should be fine.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That makes sense then.
But what will stop it from getting shot by Sentries?
I would make it a slow slime, and not anti structure.
Here's how:
- Whips can Lash while Uprooted
- Lash has a short knock-back
Would make the Whip a pretty mean structure.
Also remember that cheaper Gorge's that are more agile and can support on top of that are also limited by the player count and by the needs of the team. Redundancy doesn't necessarily imply uselessness.
EDIT: Shouldn't this be in I&S?
it needs to be passive ability, not an upgrade.
but the problem is how easily whips are killed.
whips need to be rooted under the infestation, attack when marine gets close and hide under infestation when marine moves away. Scan would reveal its location.
but the problem is how easily whips are killed.
whips need to be rooted under the infestation, attack when marine gets close and hide under infestation when marine moves away. Scan would reveal its location.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed on both accounts, these changes will make it scary to be near a Hive.
Edit: Just saw on Design Log about Whips, and knocking weapon out of Marine's hand doesn't sound fun at all...
It is, or maybe it's been moved since you wrote it.