Onos Knock Down vs Devour
thefonz
Join Date: 2011-06-22 Member: 105847Members
Join Date: 2011-06-22 Member: 105847Members
<div class="IPBDescription">one is in, one is out, but they are basically the same</div>Let's start the (simple) comparison with devour.
When a marine is devoured, he is out of the game and doomed to die unless his team can free him by killing the onos.
Devour was not included because it apparently isn't fun to sit inside an onos for 15 seconds waiting to die or be freed.
Now for knock down.
When an onos hits a marine, the marine gets sent flying back a few feet and falls to the ground.
In theory, the marine gets knock far enough from the onos that the marine can get back up.
In practice, the marine gets knocked into a corner or wall and cannot get up while the onos keeps hitting them down until they die.
So, both attacks tend to leave the marine screwed over unless his teammates can kill (or at least drive away for knock down) the onos.
From this I would like to have the following things discussed.
1) Knock down needs reworked (this is probably already on the table with the devs), suggestions?
2) Can devour be brought back for NS2? (Let's at least play with the idea and try it out, that's what betas are for!)
My ideas to answer these questions
1)
maybe speed up how quickly the marine stands up
maybe make the knock down a charged version of the main attack. i.e. click to simply hit for damage (faster). click and hold for about 0.5-1.0 second to damage and knock down (slower)
2)
maybe give the devoured marine an option to suicide and enter the spawn queue rather than wait to be rescued or die
maybe make an onos that has devoured someone move slower while they die, this should ignore if the marine has suicided or not. they slowness should last for the total time needed to devour a marine. (this suggestion combats the tactic or devouring one marine from the group and running away)
When a marine is devoured, he is out of the game and doomed to die unless his team can free him by killing the onos.
Devour was not included because it apparently isn't fun to sit inside an onos for 15 seconds waiting to die or be freed.
Now for knock down.
When an onos hits a marine, the marine gets sent flying back a few feet and falls to the ground.
In theory, the marine gets knock far enough from the onos that the marine can get back up.
In practice, the marine gets knocked into a corner or wall and cannot get up while the onos keeps hitting them down until they die.
So, both attacks tend to leave the marine screwed over unless his teammates can kill (or at least drive away for knock down) the onos.
From this I would like to have the following things discussed.
1) Knock down needs reworked (this is probably already on the table with the devs), suggestions?
2) Can devour be brought back for NS2? (Let's at least play with the idea and try it out, that's what betas are for!)
My ideas to answer these questions
1)
maybe speed up how quickly the marine stands up
maybe make the knock down a charged version of the main attack. i.e. click to simply hit for damage (faster). click and hold for about 0.5-1.0 second to damage and knock down (slower)
2)
maybe give the devoured marine an option to suicide and enter the spawn queue rather than wait to be rescued or die
maybe make an onos that has devoured someone move slower while they die, this should ignore if the marine has suicided or not. they slowness should last for the total time needed to devour a marine. (this suggestion combats the tactic or devouring one marine from the group and running away)
Comments
If the onos should have one attack that makes marines unable to move, it should be devour. It's much more original that a simple knock-down and iconic of natural selection. Replacing devour by a primary weapon knock-down is a marketing mistake in my opinion.
With knock down I manage to get up and get away about half the time. OK that may be due to hit-reg or dodgy Onos controls, I dunno.
When I'm knocked down I can still see what's going on around me and in the worst case scenario I die very soon after. It's much better than having a 'screen saver' appear like in NS1 while I sit and twiddle my thumbs.
Current knock down could be improved by adding a sadistic 'crawl away if you can' movement for knocked down marines. I think there was something like that in Left for Dead 2, or a server side mod I don't remember. Players who were incapacitated could drag themselves along at a slow pace.
With knock down I manage to get up and get away about half the time. OK that may be due to hit-reg or dodgy Onos controls, I dunno.
When I'm knocked down I can still see what's going on around me and in the worst case scenario I die very soon after. It's much better than having a 'screen saver' appear like in NS1 while I sit and twiddle my thumbs.
Current knock down could be improved by adding a sadistic 'crawl away if you can' movement for knocked down marines. I think there was something like that in Left for Dead 2, or a server side mod I don't remember. Players who were incapacitated could drag themselves along at a slow pace.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What i liked about devour was it could only affect one marine. The onos could only devour one player at a time and the next one when the first one was digested. Knockdown does knockdown pretty much everyone near the onos and none of them can fightback.
stole the words outa my mouth.
great point OP. +1
not being able to move is frustrating. period. but if you're gonna do it, limit to as few marines as possible (Devour) with a downside, and IF you keep a "not being able to move or have input in how you die" mechanic, you might as well make it really interesting/fun. (<b>Meta game inside onos! axe away!!</b>)
I should note that i'm anti-debilitation moves on the whole and I'd rather see the back-end of both abilities. The OP is right, however, that they function in a similar way. In fact, at least devour suffered from the limitation of only affecting one player. Knockdown can be used over and over again on groups as well as individuals. We now have an attack that is almost as annoying as devour but which can be used endlessly so, overall, is a more annoying move.
Add jetpacks into the mix and his knockback becomes quite useless. If you get knocked down, two things are going on.
1. He surprised you
2. You were in the wrong place, with the wrong equipment to deal with this end game unit.
The thing is, when you know an Onos is about to arrive, you outflank him or start going to other areas he has a hard time getting to, all the while shooting at him. Instead of going head on, you as a none-jetpack marine have no place to be near him, while it is his job to knock you down and actually get near you.
Circle strafing is doable to newer Onos players, but still quite dangerous. But everyone want to try their hand at axing the Onos :P
When Onos knocks down Marines, Gorges can rush up and +use the Marine to gobble him up, and spit back out like Yoshi does with his eggs :D
Come on! His belly isn't just for slime and goo!
devour instantly kills whomever gets hit with it.
fully armed, full health marine, ONE HIT KILL
unless your team will chase it down AND has the power to kill it
knock down at least gives you a fighting chance, in ns1 devour was SO cheap.
combine that with the similar hitbox dragging...
HELL NO to devour.
Some of my fondest NS1 memories are of devour. Praying seconds before being eaten, being saved and chasing down onos to save team mates.
I don't fear the onos like I used too. You never wanted to be that guy that got eaten first, Thats what truly made you fear it.
As soon as you're eaten you join the end of spawn queue. Not after you're digested.
You can be saved from the stomach before re-spawning.
You can axe the onos from the inside so a low health onos better think twice about devouring.
Also onos farts a large spore cloud after devouring completes.
it could be a high energy usage attack so onos couldnt spam it and would have to use it at the right time, but at least the attack makes sense
give the onos the horn smash attack in slot 1.
anyone that doesnt agree with this give me a GOOD reason why.
devour instantly kills whomever gets hit with it.
fully armed, full health marine, ONE HIT KILL
unless your team will chase it down AND has the power to kill it
knock down at least gives you a fighting chance, in ns1 devour was SO cheap.
combine that with the similar hitbox dragging...
HELL NO to devour.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thats what made the onos so unique and feared, no one wanted to die that way cause its so devastating on resources.
It takes roughly 20 seconds do be killed from a devour on full health, wtf is 20 seconds?
Its nothing. If time is so precious to people why are they playing a computer game in the first place.
I never minded being devoured, the amount of time ive been dead in counter strike and waiting for the round to end goes far beyond any amount of time ive spent staring absent minded at a computer screen.
3rd It encourages the fact marines are not meant to wander alone, I can admit that when a onos finds that loner marine- eating him it just the funnest way to show him how stupid he is for venturing off.
Hell, even when im that marine ive learnt my lesson enough times and binded a "kill" key for when he finds me.
4th i bet when you onos you use the devour skill so you're a hypocrite
^are those reasons good enough for you?
+1 to devour
With devour, the best thing to do was generally to devour one marine and kill the rest or, more probably, run away.
With gore, you have to press the attack to get a kill, it doesn't take the marine out of the fight instantly, only as long as the onos keeps attacking him, which gives other marines more time to kill the onos, and also introduces the possibility that the onos might switch targets to a more convenient one, and you can always get knocked somewhere hard to reach.
It is universally a better mechanic.
It takes roughly 20 seconds do be killed from a devour on full health, wtf is 20 seconds?
Its nothing. If time is so precious to people why are they playing a computer game in the first place.
I never minded being devoured, the amount of time ive been dead in counter strike and waiting for the round to end goes far beyond any amount of time ive spent staring absent minded at a computer screen.
3rd It encourages the fact marines are not meant to wander alone, I can admit that when a onos finds that loner marine- eating him it just the funnest way to show him how stupid he is for venturing off.
Hell, even when im that marine ive learnt my lesson enough times and binded a "kill" key for when he finds me.
4th i bet when you onos you use the devour skill so you're a hypocrite
^are those reasons good enough for you?
+1 to devour<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
you only like it because of how cheap it is
its giving one class in the game a 1 hit kill on anyone on the other team.
and no you dont have to use it on a lone marine.
and i didnt play a lot of onos, i played mostly fade or gorge.
its not the amount of time you spend in the onos its the fact that you can have a maxed out marine and the onos can kill it in ONE HIT.
go ahead and argue thats balanced.
It's an end-game unit that costs quite a few resources, is the proverbial broad side of a barn as far as aiming goes, and would discourage rambos.
Sure, it's annoying as a Marine. But Onos are meant to be a game-ender as well. Kharaa have to hold three static points (plus RTs) to get end-game tech. Marines? One (plus RTs) and time. I don't see an issue with the field being slanted toward Kharaa at the top of both tech trees due to the added location requirements.
I see ZERO problem with bringing Devour back. Give the Onos some REAL incentive for the Marines to go 'oh, CRAP'. With the added expenditure on the Kharaa side to even GET Onos, it should be far more devastating than it is currently (I'd go so far as to say it should be FAR stronger than the NS 2.1 version).
It's an end-game unit that costs quite a few resources, is the proverbial broad side of a barn as far as aiming goes, and would discourage rambos.
Sure, it's annoying as a Marine. But Onos are meant to be a game-ender as well. Kharaa have to hold three static points (plus RTs) to get end-game tech. Marines? One (plus RTs) and time. I don't see an issue with the field being slanted toward Kharaa at the top of both tech trees due to the added location requirements.
I see ZERO problem with bringing Devour back. Give the Onos some REAL incentive for the Marines to go 'oh, CRAP'. With the added expenditure on the Kharaa side to even GET Onos, it should be far more devastating than it is currently (I'd go so far as to say it should be FAR stronger than the NS 2.1 version).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
devour was always unrealistic and nowhere near balanced. its the only class in the entire game that can kill in one hit regardless. people arguing that devour only worked on lone marines obviously never played ns1 that much. onos is stop enough to run in, devour and run out. its even easier with gorge support. hell look at the onos in ns2, unless the onos is stupid they regularly hit and run without dying. no one is arguing to nerf the onos, the onos ends games just fine as is. theres absolutely no need to give it devour. if anything its the lower classes that need the buffs.
Just to remind people, in this video devouring did last for 30 seconds :D (dont know if they changed the time later)
you sound like someone who got devoured one too many times...
I am 100% in favor of bringing back devour. It encourages squad movement as marines and promotes comradery when a marine is saved from the belly of an onos by his team mates. There are many variables that can be adjusted to balance out devour but as it was in NS1 I would be more then happy to see in NS2.
+1 to bringing back devour
Nothing was more fun than be eaten and rescued by the friends, killing the onos.
maybe have to worse somehow.
but Devour+1