Whips
assbda
Join Date: 2011-05-02 Member: 96737Members
Join Date: 2011-05-02 Member: 96737Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Charlie needs an idea?</div>with the "something needs to be done to make whips useful"
what if whips just paralyzed who ever it hits for 5 - 10 seconds.
If thats to much then what if it just renders the target unconscious and they fall over
OR my favorite one. It causes massive concussion to the target- their crosshairs start swinging all over the place (much like the conc grenades back in tfc that the scouts and medics used) But with a added blur effect perhaps, i dunno.
Possibly give them more armor and allow them to swing at marines while theyre uprooted aswell so alien coms can send them in with a group of players
what if whips just paralyzed who ever it hits for 5 - 10 seconds.
If thats to much then what if it just renders the target unconscious and they fall over
OR my favorite one. It causes massive concussion to the target- their crosshairs start swinging all over the place (much like the conc grenades back in tfc that the scouts and medics used) But with a added blur effect perhaps, i dunno.
Possibly give them more armor and allow them to swing at marines while theyre uprooted aswell so alien coms can send them in with a group of players
Comments
this together with a shorter time to attack so it's not so easy to just peek, shoot and get back.
yeah i also thought about it that way, but a bigger picture would reveal that it just reinforces the team play marines need to use and theyle need to jump in and save the day for the unfortunate victim. Thus the solo marine is as good as dead.
edit: I can see that the hydra and whip would complement each other well with stun.
Together with shade will be 2 or 3 in group very deadly and sneaky.
.. stay tuned for bombard attack, and then ask for more :)
For killing marines you have another thinks like .. ehmmm ... skulks/fades/hydras :)
I agree that Whips are not very effective currently. They cannot touch Marines further away than 6 range, and they are not deadly enough up close.
Hence I'd like to see a strong slowing effect on the Whip's attack (40+%), so a Marine will likely take 2-3 hits when trying to rush past a Whip.
I have a few reasons:
*the whip seems useless on most wide open maps, the fact that it needs to be stationary to be effective makes it worse at defending then a lone hydra, there are barely any effective areas it can defend.
*most of the time whips are used for research purposes <i>only.</i> seems strange since their model seems to fit another purpose.
*I think it wouldn't be op, since the thing is as slow as molasses, and can easily be taken out from afar.
*crags will be even more powerful when babblers are implemented, but the same could be said with bombard.
And give mature whips it's acid balls as a ranged attack, filling an offense chamber like role. But still having bombard as it's targeted ability so you can target an area where you want it to keep splashing acid at.
Not a big fan of the knockdown/out versions. Way to punishing of a hit for what a whips gameplay purpose is currently, imo.
This would mean that the Marine player would have to spend valuable time redirecting his aim.
Another possible idea is provide alien commander with ability to build Hydras for projectile attack and keep whips as close quarters attack/defense structure. This would allow the alien commander to mix up how he/she decides to defend a location and would in a sense make whips more useful as they could protect the hydras from close quarters attacks or marines trying to snipe them from around a corner.
Providing alien commander with hydras would seem like best fix as it allows commander to lock down a hive much more efficiently like marines can lock down hives with turrets. Gorges can build hydras, but lets be honest....how often can you as an alien commander seriously expect 1-2 teammates to gorge and drop hydras to lock down a hive. The commander should be able to do it just as Marine commander can drop turrets.
Let damage from Marine weapons and attacking enemies reveal Whips for a few seconds, as well as remain visible when moving while uprooted (researching upgrades and upgrading to Mature Whip, too?)
you would need say a minimum of 3-4 whips to activate this ability, however if marines manage to destroy one of the whips in the wall the remaining whips disengage and return to offense mode.
jetpacks could simply fly over... thus walls force marines to go down jetpack tech path?
would have to be offset somehow, say with res cost, to prevent abuse, but could be an answer to marines ability to weld doors..?
BAM!
Let damage from Marine weapons and attacking enemies reveal Whips for a few seconds, as well as remain visible when moving while uprooted (researching upgrades and upgrading to Mature Whip, too?)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This would be mean as hell. I honestly think they should stay cloaked while moving, but reappear if bumped into or if they attack.
you would need say a minimum of 3-4 whips to activate this ability, however if marines manage to destroy one of the whips in the wall the remaining whips disengage and return to offense mode.
jetpacks could simply fly over... thus walls force marines to go down jetpack tech path?
would have to be offset somehow, say with res cost, to prevent abuse, but could be an answer to marines ability to weld doors..?
BAM!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I thing the alien "door wielding" will be taken care of by DI in the future. DI clogs up the corridor and has to be flamed away.
could have both though.
2 Whips together one snatching a marine holding him while the other whips beating him to death.
Well timed melee could get you out of it. Or a team mate simply melees you out of its grip.
i was thinking about, what actually is the weak point of the whip? well, its clearly
range damage :P
so i remembered about some blog post in summer last year, were charlie was writing
about <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/news/2010/6/damage_types_in_ns2" target="_blank">Damage Types in NS2</a>, and this brought me to a simple solution:
<!--coloro:#483D8B--><span style="color:#483D8B"><!--/coloro--><b>
make the whip absorb about 80% of the damage done by any projectile weapon.</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> this seems
alot at first glance, but you should keep in mind that whips only deal damage if the marine
is close enough, which you can easily avoid, and you still could kill that thing with flame, explosive or
melee damage like any other structure.
what would be the result about that?
commanders dont have to "hide" the whip at sneaky positions (which barely exist and cause headache to
find) but can place them more aggressive, just directly in the middle of a hallway. this would definitely
make whips much more useful, they will deal damage against marines who want to rush in, or otherwise
delay them alot if they gonna take them down.
think about it
make the whip absorb about 80% of the damage done by any projectile weapon.</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> this seems
alot at first glance, but you should keep in mind that whips only deal damage if the marine
is close enough, which you can easily avoid, and you still could kill that thing with flame, explosive or
melee damage like any other structure.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This sounds conceptually identical to Umbra, with tweaked values, which gives credence to my own idea of moving one ability from each chamber (Fury, Umbra, Cloak, Energize) to the Hives, and allowing them to be cast on their originating structures or on any structure connected to that Hive via Infestation.
i.e. A Crag Hive could cast Fury, Umbra, Cloak or Energize on any structure connected to it, and can cast Umbra on ANY Crag regardless of it's connection to the Crag Hive.
the only thing to take into consideration would be, to adjust some effects / sounds when the whip
gets hit by projectile weapon, so that players understand that they do almost no damage
on that whip (recoil, deflect sound, bullets dont pass the armor of the whip, which is already visual
present on the model), otherwise it would be frustrating for new players
Which isn't much different than an 80% damage absorption, save that Umbra runs on an expiring timer, requires Energy, and explicit activation :)
I agree about the need for more feedback. I recall there being a block comment in one of the Lua files describing the plans for some damage feedback system, wherein players will either spurt blood or shed chips of armor or sparks or something similar when damaged to indicate whether a player is still Armored or not.
about <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/news/2010/6/damage_types_in_ns2" target="_blank">Damage Types in NS2</a>, and this brought me to a simple solution:
<!--coloro:#483D8B--><span style="color:#483D8B"><!--/coloro--><b>
make the whip absorb about 80% of the damage done by any projectile weapon.</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> this seems
alot at first glance, but you should keep in mind that whips only deal damage if the marine
is close enough, which you can easily avoid, and you still could kill that thing with flame, explosive or
melee damage like any other structure.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I had an idea similar to that. The main idea is to make Whips less reliant on other chambers for survival.
<!--quoteo(post=1860009:date=Jul 12 2011, 03:17 AM:name=twiliteblue)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (twiliteblue @ Jul 12 2011, 03:17 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1860009"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...
Whips have a lot of potential. They look cool, can hit all enemies in its arm's reach, and are mobile. Number-wise, they could use a lot of buffs.
Fury's effect radius is way too small, and its duration is too short, severely limiting Fury's usefulness. Whips lack the health, two Marines can kill a Whip in 5 seconds while remaining out of its reach. <u>Perhaps Whips could gain a defensive stance, which reduces the damage it receives, but renders it unable to attack?</u>
...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
On second thought, Hydras and alien tech structures (Whip, Crag, Shade and Shift) seem to have a lot of potential synergy together. A simple HP boost for all alien tech structures might be sufficient. They're just too fragile right now.
all alien structures (as i remember) had much more hp than now, which made killing
structures very frustrating as marines, so they got reduced.
my idea about the 80% projectile resistance came actually from the whips design. it looks
somehow heavy armored, although not armored enough to resist heat (flame thrower) or
heavy explosions. if you have 80% dmg absorb as base line + umbra, whips would
be almost unkillable by range weapons, what i think would be the key for whips to become
useful. please put some more thoughts in it what potential side effects such change would
have: the intention is not to make the whip over powered, as it seems in first place, which
they would not be anyway (no range attacks vs players), but the commander could
place them as obstacles in the way, instead of hiding around corners or even directly at the
frontline, which will be necessary if you want whips as siege weapons later on.
as all alien structures, whips will die without infestation, so the easiest way to kill them would
be to simply kill the cyst or take a GL / ARC with you (the fast solution :P ).
i can see the following game play could occur: aliens build whips, somewhere on the way
to a hive / upcoming hive. marines are pushing forward, to deny that hive (well, up to this point
build 180 is the same). now, instead of simply overrunning the whips or rushing in the hive before any alien could react, the marines need to shoot them down in a group (if there is a larger amount of
whips) to do that in a reasonable amount of time, and to overcome gorge heal they need
GLs / ARCs. so, whats the target now of the marines?
kill the hive, therefor clear the way (kill whips), therefor kill the gorge and or cysts or cover the own artillerie
the aliens goals: defend the hive, therefor secure the area (with whips and gorge), therefor support the gorges and focus attacks on enemy artillerie if there are any.
for me, this gameplay is already quite deep. the only thing whats missing is a mechanic that makes
the marines want to see the whips destroyed instead of ignoring them and just rushing by. that
can be done by slow on hit (i know, not very innovative idea!) and just by
some clever placement and some teamplay: grow whips in places where they are obstructing marines
path but allow aliens to ambush from close by, place always a crag close to hive point (for umbra, so shooting
the hive from big range isnt very effectful). in combination with slow on hit, whips would be excellent at
SECURING areas, in controverse to the hydras task: support dps, somewhat a glas cannon once marines
have proper weapons and upgrades
now, think about this idea once again please and which possible game play scenarios could arise and if
you would like them :)
<i><!--coloro:#708090--><span style="color:#708090"><!--/coloro-->side note:
i've seen some interesting gameplay in Global Agenda (some of you might know it, free2play avaiable on steam). there are 4 classes, one of them is able to place turrets, heal stations, sensor stations etc. so,
to take down a robotic (thats the name of the "builder" class) you need to destroy his medstation. to destroy
the medstation, you need massive firepower, because his repairing capabilities are really high. so the gameplay was like:
destroy the turret (its damage is MASSIVE in that game), therefor kill the robotic (turret being repaired is unkillable with standard weapons), therefor destroy the medstation (weakest structure, possible to over-dps the robotics repair).
its quite similar to what i described above for ns2 (in sense of such main goal can be achieved best by achieving series of sub goals), and that kind of gameplay i completely enjoyed. you could
not just simply shoot around like crazy (and being maybe useless), you had to <u>think</u> about what you have to shoot to have the biggest impact. similar concept rendered on all classes in that game aswell, but thats too much to sum up now<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></i>
An alternative would be to mess up their aim. This could be done by either making the gun shoot not as precisely for a bit, or by rotating them somewhat, so that they have to re-aim.
Whips would also become tougher, independent of other structures, and fill the role of mobile siege weapons.
<a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/155/ns22011072116165105.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/5200/ns22011072116165105.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
It can slash those bags at the Marines dealing a big DMG on armor only.
Each bag hast to grow again (like 5 seconds).
Hope you know what i mean.
Greetings
Whips would also become tougher, independent of other structures, and fill the role of mobile siege weapons.
<a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/155/ns22011072116165105.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/5200/ns22011072116165105.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm down with Whip Wall becoming a colloquialism!
Maybe we could just reduce the cost of Whips to facilitate whip walls?