Please remove the in-combat penalties on alien upgrades
rantology
Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
So right now these are the "combat penalties" applied to alien upgrades:
Carapace - Slows down your movement speed at all times
Celerity - Only works out of combat for 2 seconds+
Regeneration (it was re-nerfed in 219) - Only works when out of combat for 8 seconds+ (you don't even get base health regeneration with it)
These penalties are really frustrating and I don't think they add anything to the game or to gameplay of value from both marine or alien perspective. The alien upgrade system is in a terrible state right now, half the upgrades are useless (Hypermutation, Feint on anything but fade, Camoflauge, Regeneration is once again terrible) and the ones that are useful have "trade offs" tacked onto them in an attempt to bring them down to the same level of the other upgrades, so that all upgrades can appear equally useless so to speak =P These penalties are unnecessary, unintuitive to new players and just frustrating for everyone else.
I suggest to please instead consider balancing the upgrades around consistency, have celerity be a static speed increase at all times. Regen needs to go back to what it was in 218 in the least. Carapace needs the slow removed. So if celerity is too fast, reduce the speed bonus instead of tacking on a frustrating in-combat penalty etc.
Please stop doing this to the alien upgrade system :(
Carapace - Slows down your movement speed at all times
Celerity - Only works out of combat for 2 seconds+
Regeneration (it was re-nerfed in 219) - Only works when out of combat for 8 seconds+ (you don't even get base health regeneration with it)
These penalties are really frustrating and I don't think they add anything to the game or to gameplay of value from both marine or alien perspective. The alien upgrade system is in a terrible state right now, half the upgrades are useless (Hypermutation, Feint on anything but fade, Camoflauge, Regeneration is once again terrible) and the ones that are useful have "trade offs" tacked onto them in an attempt to bring them down to the same level of the other upgrades, so that all upgrades can appear equally useless so to speak =P These penalties are unnecessary, unintuitive to new players and just frustrating for everyone else.
I suggest to please instead consider balancing the upgrades around consistency, have celerity be a static speed increase at all times. Regen needs to go back to what it was in 218 in the least. Carapace needs the slow removed. So if celerity is too fast, reduce the speed bonus instead of tacking on a frustrating in-combat penalty etc.
Please stop doing this to the alien upgrade system :(
Comments
Being a player that likes to go fast, I don't like that Carapace slows down. But I do believe it is necessary because it is a trade-off for increased armor. I use it for Gorge and Onos as they don't really move that fast anyways. I can't really make much of a comment on celerity because although while it is true that it is problematic when I get shot and suddenly slow down, sometimes I am able to avoid that entirely by skirting around marines and killing them before they could even get a hit.
I don't have a problem with how Regeneration is now. And even when I play Onos, I have recently been choosing it over Carapace. Unless I need to be fighting an Exosuit, my current Onos build is to go Celerity and Regeneration. That way I can attack a base and if they beacon, I run away quickly and heal any damage done. If I have a Gorge I know will heal me up, sometimes I go Carapace just so I am tougher.
I don't know if you've seen what Celerity does to Lerks now, but they move bloody quick. I find that a far more useful upgrade, especially without Carapace for the added speed. This does of course make me very fragile and often I will get one-shot, so that is generally the only time I use feign death on a class.
Feign death in my eyes just doesn't really work well unless you have teammates to take the aggro. I have found myself killed as a gorge countless time with feign death, only to just get killed again once I come back up because I don't have any means of escape.
I never find myself using Hypermutation and I don't think I know anybody who does. Usually I don't even research it as an Alien Commander because there are far better uses for those resources. I would just prefer it to be a passive upgrade than to have to choose it over adrenaline or celerity.
Celerity also blur your screen.
Marines don't get slower with L3 armor, do they? Exactly.
As for no celerity/regen in battle, that's understandable.
Regen needs a smaller cooldown though.
Before, players would get carapace and regen, the combination of these 2 were very strong as you were both harder to kill and regenerated in combat. Now we cant get both, so the penalty for getting regen is that you cannot use carapace, and the penatly for using carapace is that you cannot use regen
also
Please combine Cloak with Silence and re-balance into 1 upgrade, make it so you cloak when still and are silent when moving around (call it stealth or something) and then give us focus again !
Before, players would get carapace and regen, the combination of these 2 were very strong as you were both harder to kill and regenerated in combat. Now we cant get both, so the penalty for getting regen is that you cannot use carapace, and the penatly for using carapace is that you cannot use regen<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly.
<!--quoteo(post=1976239:date=Sep 12 2012, 01:30 PM:name=piratedave)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (piratedave @ Sep 12 2012, 01:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1976239"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Please combine Cloak with Silence and re-balance into 1 upgrade, make it so you cloak when still and are silent when moving around (call it stealth or something) and then give us focus again !<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, that sounds way too strong. Same for focus.
The thought behind cloak was, that it makes you harder to track while moving and invisible while standing. This has already been achieved, but the slowdown while moving cloaked is just not needed. The faster you move the more partially visible you get. That is enough for any marine to detect you. It should just be a bit more difficult to aim at you. The slowdown cancels that use. It should be scraped like the other upgrade-downsides.
Should remove or replace Hypermutation, nobody uses it/researches it. At the moment it's just another icon to confuse newbie commanders.
Cara still has a role on the higher lifeforms, but with regen being so good it's hardly ever used. Plus the fact that it slows down the skulk so significantly I see no use for it until leap and adrenaline are up... and even then.
IMO they should reduce the slow for cara on the Skulk and I don't know how they could fix regen, but right now for the Fade it's ridiculous. I feel like i'm cheating when I use it.
Goes without saying honestly.
As for regen though I really, really liked the base regen being affected in combat by it. It wasn't a ton of hp, but enough to balance out not having the extra armor applied by carapace. It just felt like it wasn't really an upgrade without the base regen being upped.
As for celerity... why shouldn't it be just a passive movement upgrade all the time? Obviously it can't stay as fast as it is now, but it should be permanent. It would help to raise the skill ceiling (which we need if NS2 is going to succeed as an e-sport) without really changing the skill floor (a faster floor skulk is still going to die pretty easily).
And it wasn't introduced in the OP, but... feign death should sap all your energy. Would still make it so you have the chance of surviving, but fades wouldn't have a 100% escape mechanism.
However I'm not against just lessening the counter effects so there is still some trade-off. Ie., if cara slowdown is now 20%, make it 5-10%. Not huge, but enough to show that there is something.
I'm not sure about the regen nerf - I haven't experienced that myself. I believe it should only activate post-wound, not in-combat.
Camoflague currently silences you if you are walking, and you can't run with it on, so it kind of already works as required. I think the current implementation of camo / silence works well, or well enough. I just think that the time it takes to get those upgrades gets to a point where they're not useful any more (the end of early game seems to be when the first upgrades come out).
Feign death still feels very OP to me - when I have it as a fade, I rarely die. I can't see a way of implementing it that would make it more fair or reasonable. I mean come on - it's hard enough to kill a fade, and then they get away. Very disappointing.
Celerity - I like how it works right now and I wouldn't change it. It's not meant to be a combat ability. If you want a combat speed-up, why not change hypermutation for something along those lines - ie., something that improves skulk jump/leap, gorge belly-slide, fade shadow-step, lerk glide/flight, and onos charge.
Celerity will always be a combat ability, marine vs skulk combat is mainly about getting close to the marine as fast as possible so you take minimal damage, getting a speed boost is obviously useful in this context. The slowdown mainly appear like random/buggy movement to me. Also the speed you get with the skulk and the lerk is probably too much for the engine to handle with the current performances.
An agility upgrade would be great yes (+10% jump height, +10% air control, 10% faster acceleration or something like it).
Cara still has a role on the higher lifeforms, but with regen being so good it's hardly ever used. Plus the fact that it slows down the skulk so significantly I see no use for it until leap and adrenaline are up... and even then.
IMO they should reduce the slow for cara on the Skulk and I don't know how they could fix regen, but right now for the Fade it's ridiculous. I feel like i'm cheating when I use it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The latest build has "fixed" that so even the base 6%/s regen that you used to get will now only start after 8 seconds. You no longer regen any health in combat with regen.
I haven't played 219 enough to try out new regen, but to me it had been the 2nd most powerful upgrade after celerity. I dont mind the celerity speed up time either, it feels pretty natural to me and makes sense. A reduction to the overall speed and making it 100% active isn't a bad change either though.
Explain yourself. I find this mechanic on celerity to be really disorienting and awful. I'm interested to see why it has to be that way...
And that's enough for an upgrade meant to be used for fast map traversal.
If regen/celerity could be used 100% in battle, marines would get stomped.
And that's enough for an upgrade meant to be used for fast map traversal.
If regen/celerity could be used 100% in battle, marines would get stomped.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's only "meant to be used for map traversal" because the devs say it is.
The base concept in NS1, where it works much better, is also simpler: it just works all the time.
This way offers the following benefits to the people who make the game:
<ul><li>easier to 'balance' - there's one thing to adjust and it's the speed of a lifeform with celerity. you tweak and iterate until it's the right value, and then you stop.</li><li>better in terms of useability - no awkward changes in speed, to be gradually 'learned' by players when the intuitive thing is to just move faster all the time</li><li>less tricky half-baked ideas to spend time justifying - I still haven't seen a real argument for WHY celerity should only be for entering/leaving combat or "traversing the map". It was just decided that it should be and beaten into everyone that it's a great idea.</li></ul>
Marines already get stomped because hit registration is still so poor. The times they don't get stomped, it's in some part thanks to the game handing them freebies like this.
And that's enough for an upgrade meant to be used for fast map traversal.
If regen/celerity could be used 100% in battle, marines would get stomped.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This +1
Cara shouldn't slow, but regen/celerity are fine imho. 8sec delay on regen makes lifeforms take cover to regen, which seems reasonable. It sucks when u get 3 shotguns on a fade just so he can be back in your face at 100% 6 seconds later.
You must be still playing build 207 or something. :)
<!--quoteo(post=1976640:date=Sep 13 2012, 03:11 AM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Sep 13 2012, 03:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1976640"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The base concept in NS1, where it works much better, is also simpler: it just works all the time.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's also much slower in NS1.
I wouldn't be against the idea of making it 25% or 30% speed/regen boost while in battle and 100% when out.
Much more interesting than the same linear upgrades we saw in NS1 and see in a lot of games.
Or at least it was that way in 218... If they changed it...