Poor shade
Tha
Join Date: 2009-06-05 Member: 67694Members
Join Date: 2009-06-05 Member: 67694Members
<div class="IPBDescription">It works but its lacking</div>With the introduction of the shift, we saw two new upgrades come in. One is a truly practical and effective upgrade called celerity, which challenges only cara based early game play, and the other is a overcomplicated underused hyper mutation.
On the other hand we have the crag, providing simple yet effective upgrades, out of combat you regen fast, and in general you become tougher(and apparently soon to be slower). That's a fairly good selection so far minus the hyper mutation which ill roughly cover, but my point is the shade.
The shades abilities are two that simply aren't versatile. Whereas celerity helps you travel and close the gap, silence just helps close the gap(possibly others but that's the main aim). Even then if the detection is done by visual contact the upgrade is rendered useless, same could be said for celerity but hey it got you to your destination quicker previously already. Then we have camouflage, this is imo the best attempt at making the shade relevant. But I hate redundancies and this camouflage is redundant with the cloak that the shade already gives off. Not to mention in its current state it is lacking, the camouflage actually has a trade-off where it makes you slower, whilst most other mutations do not, again im not sure if the dev's are going through with the upgrade trade-off system(which I heavily don't encourage as they are upgrades, they need to be a fun answer for marines simply gaining weapon and armour upgrades.) Redundancies area big no no, in an rts we want to eliminate it. I propose a change to how its activated, camouflage should be versatile, it should be able to be used without gimping your alien. For example a combat mod in NS1 allowed for phase shift, instantly and very briefly at the expense of energy camouflaging your alien. Not saying that's a perfect example but that is not overlapped by the shade, and its not totally gimping to your person, and its not an instant pick on every life form(CARAPACE) as onos would have trouble properly utilising it. That's fun, it creates diversity.
See, as it stands aliens have to make their upgrades not utility, but also combat effective, or else it will get overshadowed by others that are so much more versatile such as celerity(a damn good and well designed upgrade might I add.)
To sum up I'll round up the upgrades
Celerity-map travel, gap closer(solid)
Carapace-overall unit power(boring)
Regen-hit and run, keeps your lifeforms at higher HP more often(solid)
Hyper mutation-(utility, hard to use, not unintuitive but impractical unless abused)<--- wait isn't that what unintuitive means?
Camouflage- Hindrance to normal play, cool in concept also its covered by the shade(needs to be able to be used in combat, or practical in some way, lose its hindrance)
Silence- I didn't mention this much, but its quite wimpy when compared to celerity, its role is to close gaps generally but celerity does a better job.(overshadowed)
Sorry for my bad paragraph structure and sentence skills in advance, note that my quarrel is not with the shade, crag or shift actual buildings, they work fine, are unique and have their effective uses, but with the upgrades they present.
On the other hand we have the crag, providing simple yet effective upgrades, out of combat you regen fast, and in general you become tougher(and apparently soon to be slower). That's a fairly good selection so far minus the hyper mutation which ill roughly cover, but my point is the shade.
The shades abilities are two that simply aren't versatile. Whereas celerity helps you travel and close the gap, silence just helps close the gap(possibly others but that's the main aim). Even then if the detection is done by visual contact the upgrade is rendered useless, same could be said for celerity but hey it got you to your destination quicker previously already. Then we have camouflage, this is imo the best attempt at making the shade relevant. But I hate redundancies and this camouflage is redundant with the cloak that the shade already gives off. Not to mention in its current state it is lacking, the camouflage actually has a trade-off where it makes you slower, whilst most other mutations do not, again im not sure if the dev's are going through with the upgrade trade-off system(which I heavily don't encourage as they are upgrades, they need to be a fun answer for marines simply gaining weapon and armour upgrades.) Redundancies area big no no, in an rts we want to eliminate it. I propose a change to how its activated, camouflage should be versatile, it should be able to be used without gimping your alien. For example a combat mod in NS1 allowed for phase shift, instantly and very briefly at the expense of energy camouflaging your alien. Not saying that's a perfect example but that is not overlapped by the shade, and its not totally gimping to your person, and its not an instant pick on every life form(CARAPACE) as onos would have trouble properly utilising it. That's fun, it creates diversity.
See, as it stands aliens have to make their upgrades not utility, but also combat effective, or else it will get overshadowed by others that are so much more versatile such as celerity(a damn good and well designed upgrade might I add.)
To sum up I'll round up the upgrades
Celerity-map travel, gap closer(solid)
Carapace-overall unit power(boring)
Regen-hit and run, keeps your lifeforms at higher HP more often(solid)
Hyper mutation-(utility, hard to use, not unintuitive but impractical unless abused)<--- wait isn't that what unintuitive means?
Camouflage- Hindrance to normal play, cool in concept also its covered by the shade(needs to be able to be used in combat, or practical in some way, lose its hindrance)
Silence- I didn't mention this much, but its quite wimpy when compared to celerity, its role is to close gaps generally but celerity does a better job.(overshadowed)
Sorry for my bad paragraph structure and sentence skills in advance, note that my quarrel is not with the shade, crag or shift actual buildings, they work fine, are unique and have their effective uses, but with the upgrades they present.
Comments
Remember my beef is with the upgrades
I agree with you in regards of the cloak upgrade. It doesn't fit the fast paced alien play style. And if I want to ambush, I don't need a movement-impairing cloak. I just hide in a corner until a marine walks by. No cloak needed. In order to make cloak to an useful upgrade, it has to be tweaked:
It only should cloak you completely when you stand still. (But does this in < 1 second) While moving you get partially visible. (Faster moving = more visible) Enough for a marine to realize that there is an alien incoming, but also enough for the alien to make it more difficult to hit. Make this effect transparent or moving partially visible with the material system. It should be possible for the marine to spot the moving alien, but difficult to aim at. This way the upgrade gets some skill involved on both sides without making it unbeatable.
I also agree with you, that the upgrades don't need trade offs as a fundamental design decision. But if carapace remains to be the No. 1 chosen upgrade, it would be nice to have a trade off for this one, to balance it with the other upgrade choices.
This makes me sad, cloaking is/was a powerful upgrade in NS 1, because it made it really easy to ambush marines properly. Sure you can just hide in a corner, but that's not always the best position for an ambush. The game is already too fast paced if anything. IMO the Shade should give only cloak to structures, as a PASSIVE ability like in NS 1 (no cost). That way the cloak upgrade becomes the only option for cloaking players, and will become a lot more desirable. I don't think it really needs any buffs, players who claim it is somehow UP really need to play around with it a little more. The reason why it may seem UP is because you're comparing it with carapace, which is a problem with carapace just being too much of a nobrainer, not with the other upgrades.
Silence if great for ambushing. Op you should try more ambushing.
Carapace is rarely needed in a good ambush. You don't take a hit. Or very few.
Cloak can be just as good for a ambush. Being able to hide in plain sight.
It's more off a issue with the marines than thew kharaa. A good tsa will smell a Ambush a mile away. Will check all the corners back peddle as you leap out jump over you and put a shot gun blast in your face.
A good com once he has scanning, can do it a near infinite amount of times. And uncloaks any thing in his path. So people fall back to carapace.
I think there is a down fall of the shade structure it's self.
In NS one ther was a time when sensor chambers became over powered. And they were near perfect. But players don't like being killed by things they can't see or shoot in a combat situation.
The sens cloaking radius was huge, the sensor detection see through walls was double that. At the time obs were fairly exspensive. They used heaps of energy for just about any thing they did. So building a second one was near impossible if you didn't have stable res to spare, they also went down real quick. they near instantly cloaked you moving or other wise. And sensory net works were viable. Cheap cost for what they did, for a entire build or two it was sensory first. And every room had like two sensory chambers in it. Then movment, then dc. the sensory net work blanketing every thing in cloak was truly feared. Marines would walk into a area think it was clear bump into a structure com would scan and they would back peddle into Oc's and have five aliens jump them. I think from memory the marines motion sensing tick was a bit slow as well. Or the new cloaking was effecting it. If you did uncloak you could just pop back into the near by sens field and be instantly cloaked again.
I remember entire fights on veil 100% cloaked and rines rage quitting back to back.
If the new changes to shade cloak infestation, and they eliminate the infestation sound effects, cysts are cloaked don't uncloak from being bumped. If shot to disturb cloaked structures re cloaked a little faster. Or scan wore off a little quicker. You would see them used a little more. It would be a viable first chamber if it didn't need to be built on infestation. Or if it could be moved like the whip. < way over powered suggestions
As for cloaking, if shade chamber was improved you would see it used more. At which point then we can use it enough to get enough data to form a opinion and see we're cloaking needs to go. Right now everthing uncloaks you, even when your glued to a surface. Walked over a dead flat textured vent/ grill the other day it uncloaked me. Stepped over a 1 mill seam on a floor decloaked me. Go to close to a bumpy wall decloaked. Step on a peddle decloaked. Most stairs do it as well yet it's really finicky. Some times it won't decloaked me. That's the scary part. You don't know if your cloaked or not. Every other time them steps have decloaked you why not now.
But really the ops thread could of gone in i&s
The Shade should give only passive cloak to buildings, yes. But this will not increase the usage of the cloak upgrade. If it really is useful, it wouldn't be the 3rd upgrade choice in most of the games I have played. The usefulness of this upgrade is so little, I haven't even been attacked by any cloaked alien since 3 or 4 builds. In nearly all maps (even the bright docking), it is easier to hide around edges or ledges to ambush a marine. Because of the fast paced gameplay the marines are always sprinting to their target. Don't looking around edges they come by. Sacrificing one upgrade to choose cloak just seems not nearly that useful than silence or celerity or the nobrainer (that needs to have a tradeoff for balance) carapace.
*Fyi i do ambush, and you can use walking while celerity to mimic the speed of a silenced skulk whilst keeping the possibility for a mad dash. Try it out!(havnt done it in the latest build, assuming nothings changed)
Cheers.
<!--quoteo(post=1944864:date=Jun 19 2012, 10:00 AM:name=Mestaritonttu)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mestaritonttu @ Jun 19 2012, 10:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1944864"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I wonder if an All-Seeing-Eye would be overpowered as a Shade/Veil upgrade? Like, seeing every single marine "parasited" once you take the upgrade. No combat advantage, but certainly a huge tactical one?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Or maybe some sort of alien answer to the marine scan? Or buff drifters and make them require shade?
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=118924" target="_blank">Had one but apparently it's overcomplicated.</a>
Buffing cloak could be as simple as lowering the cloak delay, so that when you are for example running from marines, it's easier to lose them. (Go behind corner, stay still and fast cloak)
I think removing cloak was a mistake unless they plan to replace it with something similar but better.
Cloak is a very viable way of gaining survivability and getting close to marines for kills.
Back in NS1, going cloak first before carapace was viable, it just required your team play a bit differently.
You either built a massive sensor network for sensor secret and players went cloak, normally this was done in vents hidden locations. Or you built a massive sensor network for cloak and players got scent of fear.
The trade off was getting scent on a player you could always see the enemy's through walls. But not it they were on the other side of the map. Unless they walked through a sensor chamber scent field. And you had to ambush near your sensory chambers.
If you took cloaking you had full rain off the map cloaked. But had to rely on visual ques to find marines or sound. Unless they were walking through a sensor network.
The play style is slightly different the Rambo kids can't handle it. But most of the competitive players were able to grasp the concept and put it into deadly efficiency. Cloaked ninja hives, cloaked walls. Cloaked dc nests or mcs to get around the map quicker.
The play style was mov run as fast as you can to a location were known marines are but before you get in motion sound range stop walk into the room. You can all see each other. Set up and attack. Or wait outs side the room in a ambush and wait for them to come to you.