Mature Aliens
BorisVolkov
Join Date: 2005-03-05 Member: 43340Members
Join Date: 2005-03-05 Member: 43340Members
Greetings everyone.
I've been playing a lot of 221. As an alien. And I have to say, a lot is missing / required for aliens to be a match against marines. 2 reasons that marines can lose is, bad marine commander and/or power nodes.
When it comes to upgrades, each level of marine armor adds a layer of protection against another bite, making it 5 bites to kill a marine with Level 3 armor. But, what of aliens, they don't have any upgrades to their damage, and carapace is easily countered with the marine weapon upgrades. If you are suggesting that other lifeforms are the upgrades to aliens, you are partly wrong - all marines spawn with whatever upgrade they have, but aliens don't, and those other lifeforms we are talking about comes with 30/50/75 resource (that's another thing too - marines can recover their fallen comrades' weapons, while aliens are gone for good).
So, I've been thinking, what can be done about aliens... I've come up with this idea: Mature Aliens. Each hive allows aliens to mature in time, providing percentage based armor, life, damage/attack speed/adrenaline enhancements over time; time based on their average lifespans. Maturity has levels; if you have just 1 hive, you can only get to first level of maturity. Max is 3, but the difference between aliens and marines is how this "upgrade" is done.
Lets assume that an average skulk lives 1 minute. They may reach maturity in 45 seconds, and the upgrade hypermutation may also get changed to let aliens mature even faster. Continuing the example; a skulk, after getting out of its egg, gets the hypermutation upgrade, which allows it to mature faster (lets say, 30 seconds for the sake of example). As the alien team have 2 hives, the skulk in question reaches first level of maturity in 30 seconds. As a bonus, it gets increased HP, armor, speed, and damage. When it reaches 2nd level of maturity, it gains another batch of these bonuses to HP, armor, speed, damage, but this time, new bonuses to attack speed, adrenaline and leap distance too.
You might think some aliens (Onos, for example) would get really OP with this, but keep that in mind, that required 45 seconds to reach maturity 1 is only for skulks. A bigger creature, such as an Onos might require a longer lifespan to reach maturity 1 - required time could be the balancing point over here. Or, they may get nerfs to certain aspects of them, only reach their same potential after maturity levels.
Weird idea, eh? Maybe a mod in the future :) And don't forget; numbers/etc... are examples as said. I'm not saying that maturity should grant those. I'm just talking about the idea of mature aliens, maturity levels, and reaching those over time. Anyway, thanks for reading a short wall of text :)
I've been playing a lot of 221. As an alien. And I have to say, a lot is missing / required for aliens to be a match against marines. 2 reasons that marines can lose is, bad marine commander and/or power nodes.
When it comes to upgrades, each level of marine armor adds a layer of protection against another bite, making it 5 bites to kill a marine with Level 3 armor. But, what of aliens, they don't have any upgrades to their damage, and carapace is easily countered with the marine weapon upgrades. If you are suggesting that other lifeforms are the upgrades to aliens, you are partly wrong - all marines spawn with whatever upgrade they have, but aliens don't, and those other lifeforms we are talking about comes with 30/50/75 resource (that's another thing too - marines can recover their fallen comrades' weapons, while aliens are gone for good).
So, I've been thinking, what can be done about aliens... I've come up with this idea: Mature Aliens. Each hive allows aliens to mature in time, providing percentage based armor, life, damage/attack speed/adrenaline enhancements over time; time based on their average lifespans. Maturity has levels; if you have just 1 hive, you can only get to first level of maturity. Max is 3, but the difference between aliens and marines is how this "upgrade" is done.
Lets assume that an average skulk lives 1 minute. They may reach maturity in 45 seconds, and the upgrade hypermutation may also get changed to let aliens mature even faster. Continuing the example; a skulk, after getting out of its egg, gets the hypermutation upgrade, which allows it to mature faster (lets say, 30 seconds for the sake of example). As the alien team have 2 hives, the skulk in question reaches first level of maturity in 30 seconds. As a bonus, it gets increased HP, armor, speed, and damage. When it reaches 2nd level of maturity, it gains another batch of these bonuses to HP, armor, speed, damage, but this time, new bonuses to attack speed, adrenaline and leap distance too.
You might think some aliens (Onos, for example) would get really OP with this, but keep that in mind, that required 45 seconds to reach maturity 1 is only for skulks. A bigger creature, such as an Onos might require a longer lifespan to reach maturity 1 - required time could be the balancing point over here. Or, they may get nerfs to certain aspects of them, only reach their same potential after maturity levels.
Weird idea, eh? Maybe a mod in the future :) And don't forget; numbers/etc... are examples as said. I'm not saying that maturity should grant those. I'm just talking about the idea of mature aliens, maturity levels, and reaching those over time. Anyway, thanks for reading a short wall of text :)
Comments
Not sure if lifeforms should mature in real time. People will probably camp until they reach maturity.
No res when dead seems enough of a need to survive already.
How does this sound as a variation?: The maximum maturity level an alien can reach is based on the number of hives currently active. So, if only 1 hive is up, a skulk can reach maturity level 1 in.. 45 seconds. But if 2 hives are up, they can then reach maturity level 2 (from level 1) in an additional 45 seconds.
My main concern with this is that it only really rewards the 'pro' players who can stay alive anyway and don't need much additional assistance, but does little to help the less skilled players who typically die quite quickly.
Maturity tied to chambers would be fine with me though.
Build a crag, and aliens automatically begin maturing extra armor.
Build a shift, and aliens automatically begin maturing extra movement speed.
The more chambers, the quicker the maturation.
Maturity tied to chambers would be fine with me though.
Build a crag, and aliens automatically begin maturing extra armor.
Build a shift, and aliens automatically begin maturing extra movement speed.
The more chambers, the quicker the maturation.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like that idea better.
How does this sound as a variation?: The maximum maturity level an alien can reach is based on the number of hives currently active. So, if only 1 hive is up, a skulk can reach maturity level 1 in.. 45 seconds. But if 2 hives are up, they can then reach maturity level 2 (from level 1) in an additional 45 seconds.
My main concern with this is that it only really rewards the 'pro' players who can stay alive anyway and don't need much additional assistance, but does little to help the less skilled players who typically die quite quickly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My concern is that as aliens lose hive they just become weaker (yet marines dont face same issues)..plus it requires you stay alive..what would people say if marines spawned with no armour upgrades and had to wait a minute to get level 1...2 minutes to get level 2...and 3 min to get level 3?
Oh and they have to hold 3 tech points to get to armour 3.
would not be popular...but people seem happy to screw aliens in this way.
Aliens need a way to mature (increase base HP and armour) thats not linked to hives so losing a hive does not mean GG.
An alternative idea would be:
Alien 1 has 0 kills, 10 deaths and a low score. That alien would then have added extra armor to make up for him/her perhaps not being a good player, giving them an edge and helping them be more competitive against more experienced players, and not punish them for not doing well. This way you don't have people waiting/camping purposefully in order to mature, and you won't have players suiciding to receive these boosts as it balances out in that the Marines gains more resources pr. kill - so if you purposefully feed them to receive the bonus, they will in turn have the points to deal with that added bonus.
Oh and they have to hold 3 tech points to get to armour 3.
would not be popular...but people seem happy to screw aliens in this way.
Aliens need a way to mature (increase base HP and armour) thats not linked to hives so losing a hive does not mean GG.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Compared to the current game this would only make Aliens stronger so how would that be screwing Aliens over? Sure the maturation upgrades would be conditional but that still has to be a step up from having no maturation upgrades at all.
Not saying I agree, or even disagree, with any of these changes - just that your post seems to be arguing against making Aliens 'weaker' when in fact these changes <i>could</i> only potentially make them stronger.
Very true. Sure, the mechanic is different; may lead to some players camping, newbie/rookie players might not benefit from this at all, but it is an upgrade to what aliens have, in an unique way.
There are different ways to reach maturity; I mean what I wrote on OP is example. Hive count could speed up the process, instead of limiting the max level - for example, 60 secs with 1 hive, 45 with 2, 30 with 3... Or, the bonuses that maturity levels grant could be different, it could be HP&Armor, attack damage with maturity level 1, another HP&Armor, attack damage, attack speed, movement speed with maturity level 2, and something else for maturity 3. But the bulk of HP&Armor, attack damage upgrades could come from maturity 1 & 2. And like other upgrades, when you lose a hive/upgrade, as long as you keep alive, you don't lose your maturity.
There could be special maturation chambers that alien commander can drop - replacing the ties to hives. As long as it is unique to aliens in a special way, I'm allright with that. As I've said, I've tried to come up with an unique, asymmetrical idea.
I'm in support of some form of maturation ability if it isn't tied to hives.