Hypermutation and Feint Deaths place in NS2
TimMc
Join Date: 2012-02-06 Member: 143945Members
Join Date: 2012-02-06 Member: 143945Members
Since they've been disabled, I hope that means both are being heavily reevaluated in how they should be implemented in game. Both ideas are interesting in theory, but both were plagued with problems.
I have what I consider to be a solution that allows them to stay, but lets hear everyones. Maybe everyone just hates them completely.
My idea is to give them to the commander.
<ul><li>Make Feint death into a commander ability that unlocks with the shade hive. For 10 res, aliens in an area selected will feint death if they die in the next 15 seconds. This will allow alien commanders to truly assist in charges against overwelming marine firepower - eg exo's.</li><li>Allow aliens to swap upgrades whenever they are near a hive (half of benefit from hypermutation).</li><li>Make Hypermutation a commander ability that unlocks with the shift hive. For 10 res, aliens in a small area (and only on infestation) for 20 seconds can get refunds for evolutions. Basically swapping tres for pres, and allowing the commander to encourage his team to respec.</li></ul>
I think both abilities will need long recharge timers to prevent spamming, or at least some mechanic that prevents feint death being used many times on same aliens. Also the crag hive, I suppose, needs a commander ability associated with it. However it would make alien comm more interesting.
I have what I consider to be a solution that allows them to stay, but lets hear everyones. Maybe everyone just hates them completely.
My idea is to give them to the commander.
<ul><li>Make Feint death into a commander ability that unlocks with the shade hive. For 10 res, aliens in an area selected will feint death if they die in the next 15 seconds. This will allow alien commanders to truly assist in charges against overwelming marine firepower - eg exo's.</li><li>Allow aliens to swap upgrades whenever they are near a hive (half of benefit from hypermutation).</li><li>Make Hypermutation a commander ability that unlocks with the shift hive. For 10 res, aliens in a small area (and only on infestation) for 20 seconds can get refunds for evolutions. Basically swapping tres for pres, and allowing the commander to encourage his team to respec.</li></ul>
I think both abilities will need long recharge timers to prevent spamming, or at least some mechanic that prevents feint death being used many times on same aliens. Also the crag hive, I suppose, needs a commander ability associated with it. However it would make alien comm more interesting.
Comments
Also, aliens should be able to swap out upgrades at hives anyway, it's annoying that you are stuck at your upgrade choices as a player because you picked them at a time when no better ones were available. They won't be able to be abused this way, so there's really no reason why this shouldn't be possible.
Maybe hypermutation can become a passive upgrade to all aliens if researched by the commander for a t.res price?
Yeah
And good god, no Frenzy.
I agree with the criticism people leveled at feign death about how no one looked forward to getting feign on either aliens or marines. However, I think shade hive needs a defensive upgrade to be relevant. Otherwise shift+crag will forever be fixed in the metagame. Right now, I think shade isn't worth getting just for silence because it will hamstring you later in the game with your higher lifeforms. Of course camo has always been a sub par ability because it duplicates the function of the shade building.
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V Redemption was awesome.
Feint Death: I feel that redemption fits better into this game, especially if it only work on infestation.
-----change redemption to instead have a chance to refund 50% of lifeform cost on death (only on infestation)
P.S. for those of you who dont know, redemption was a small chance to teleport back to the hive after reaching a certain level of hp
qft
They're already in the right place.
Hypermutation and feign death can be very fun abilities. Sure, they might not be as good as some others but that doesn't mean they can't be fun. Not every match is played hyper-competitively and not every ability should be competitive.
Some game concepts are fun but not suited for hardcore clan play. This game shouldn't be only composed of features which are good for serious play. A lot of player's game time is spent messing around and I think the game should reflect that with fun features for players to try out.
Kinda extreme I think.
V Redemption was awesome.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Randomly activating magical teleports are horrible gameplay mechanics.
With Feint Death at least you have a small chance to kill the guy escaping.
Feint Death should be retooled to account for overkill damage and if that overkill exceeds a certain threshold, you just die.
I mean, onos about to die from 5 people chasing him, goes around the corner and hypermutates into a skulk in 1 second, 75 res refunded... Not the intended use for the ability.
And feign death is sorely missed. Camo and silence are pretty useless on lerks and fades which are already pretty silent, and camo is just kind of bad overall with the huge speed penalty...
I hope they fix the exploits with feign death and put it back.
It works on a 'balancing' level, but it is so boring. We have bone walls, we have ink clouds and the best that we can think of is an attack that is twice as long but double in power?
There has to be a better way to scale aliens so we can have some cool alternative upgrades.
Speaking of Fade, Vortex is so underused.
Also +1 for feint death as Khamm ability
I quite enjoy hypermutation, even more so if it is researched early by the Khamm, a possible fix could be to just keep the proportion of health a life form has in relation to its total health, so a 50% Onos would mutate into a 50% health gorge ??
With Feint Death at least you have a small chance to kill the guy escaping.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pretty high chance I've found. One of those 'if they know what to do then it only helps at the margins' sort of thing. Still, in pubs those margins can be pretty huge. :)
<!--quoteo(post=1998032:date=Oct 27 2012, 07:53 AM:name=HeatSurge)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (HeatSurge @ Oct 27 2012, 07:53 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1998032"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hypermutation has always been kind of exploitative even without the HP thing.
I mean, onos about to die from 5 people chasing him, goes around the corner and hypermutates into a skulk in 1 second, 75 res refunded... Not the intended use for the ability.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Honestly, I don't mind this. For Hypermutation you give up celerity or adrenaline which makes a world of difference to how dangerous a lifeform is.
I mean, you get your res back in a way that makes sense (evolving back into a low lifeform) rather than involving magical "I become invisible" or "I teleport to a hive" mechanics.
Sure, it's unintended but doesn't it strangely enough work? And it's skill based too rather than an automatic thing. Overall, it might be a better mechanic.
And Feign Death is just too annoying for the marines if it's actually effective IMO. I would rather have Redemption, but with a cooldown rather than a chance to happen.
And Feign Death is just too annoying for the marines if it's actually effective IMO. I would rather have Redemption, but with a cooldown rather than a chance to happen.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
People moan about wanting redeption and focus, but I remember two things vividly in NS1:
<ul><li>Everyone raging about redemption onoses always escaping death.</li><li>Everyone raging about focus, silent lerks headbiting you for instant kill.</li></ul>
If focus was introduced, it should be shade hive just so no silence-focus combo. That was just frustrating.
Also I agree if redemption was reintroduced, it should be a cooldown. A very long one. And possibly the mechanic 'Once you hit 10% health, you redeem in 5 seconds', so that spike damage will always kill you.
The good thing about redemption was that the enemy was removed from combat, and no longer a threat. Feint death I've managed to turn around and kill people using.
<ul><li>Everyone raging about redemption onoses always escaping death.</li><li>Everyone raging about focus, silent lerks headbiting you for instant kill.</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
that's why you make a game based on concepts of balance, not on community whine. everyone will whine about something, the important thing is to separate who is whining about legitimate problems, and who is whining just because they got killed too many times. I wouldn't be against trying focus in the future (definitely not so soon before release obviously). I can't speak for the reasons behind removing it initially, but I think it could work in NS2 due to armories being able to weld armor.
the word whine looks funny now
<ul><li>Everyone raging about redemption onoses always escaping death.</li><li>Everyone raging about focus, silent lerks headbiting you for instant kill.</li></ul>
If focus was introduced, it should be shade hive just so no silence-focus combo. That was just frustrating.
Also I agree if redemption was reintroduced, it should be a cooldown. A very long one. And possibly the mechanic 'Once you hit 10% health, you redeem in 5 seconds', so that spike damage will always kill you.
The good thing about redemption was that the enemy was removed from combat, and no longer a threat. Feint death I've managed to turn around and kill people using.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd be ok with this type of implementation of redemption, just add a Fade-like teleport effect for a visual cue.
Focus on Shade should be logical, Focus in NS1 was on Sensory Chamber as well, it was Silence that seemed misplaced on Movement.
the word whine looks funny now<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You say balance, and it was, but ultimately this is a FPS and needs to allow players on the ground to enjoy themselves.
Dying instantly to an enemy you never knew was there = not fun, I cannot counter that.
Dying instantly to an enemy that made alot of noise = fun, I heard him and got a rush before dying. He outwitted me to get close.
Dying to a few bites from a silent enemy = fun, I am surprised but have a few moments to resist and possibly kill him.
But I want to provide what could be an unintended consequence..
Currently, early-game skulks require 1 parasite + 2 full bites to kill an a0 marine.
With focus doubling that damage, (I assume it doesn't affect parasite though) it'd be one parasite and one bite.
On its own it doesn't sound so bad, because skulks are supposed to ambush.
However, this upgrade being tied to a Shade hive, means that the khamm can (in lieu of a quick hive drop) place a bunch of shades across the map, or in heavily trafficked areas, such as around double on Veil. In this case, these skulks will now be invisible, and the marine will have no chance of retaliating. It would be extremely frustrating to try to play against this sort of ambush, as the only way around it is to have the commander spend res continuously scanning. In early game, that is very precious resources, and I think unfairly punishes the marines just to stay alive to get some nodes. As it is, I don't see many commanders scanning when aliens go shade first.
In NS1, this didn't seem like as much of a problem due to the fact that it required Gorges to place the SC's around the map, and considering a bunch of people would immediately Gorge for RT's, and one person would be saving for a hive, there wouldn't be very many people who would go Gorge just to drop an SC around the map to exploit this in the very early game.
I guess I'm not really for or against Focus, but thought I'd chime in with this scenario and see what people think.
But I want to provide what could be an unintended consequence..
Currently, early-game skulks require 1 parasite + 2 full bites to kill an a0 marine.
With focus doubling that damage, (I assume it doesn't affect parasite though) it'd be one parasite and one bite.
On its own it doesn't sound so bad, because skulks are supposed to ambush.
However, this upgrade being tied to a Shade hive, means that the khamm can (in lieu of a quick hive drop) place a bunch of shades across the map, or in heavily trafficked areas, such as around double on Veil. In this case, these skulks will now be invisible, and the marine will have no chance of retaliating. It would be extremely frustrating to try to play against this sort of ambush, as the only way around it is to have the commander spend res continuously scanning. In early game, that is very precious resources, and I think unfairly punishes the marines just to stay alive to get some nodes. As it is, I don't see many commanders scanning when aliens go shade first.
In NS1, this didn't seem like as much of a problem due to the fact that it required Gorges to place the SC's around the map, and considering a bunch of people would immediately Gorge for RT's, and one person would be saving for a hive, there wouldn't be very many people who would go Gorge just to drop an SC around the map to exploit this in the very early game.
I guess I'm not really for or against Focus, but thought I'd chime in with this scenario and see what people think.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well the obvious answer is that if alien team has researched focus, expanded over the map, and dropped shades everywhere, you should have Armor 1 by then. That's like complaining how hard it is to kill an Onos with W0.
I seem to recall NS1 used to revolve around fast upgrades, or at least I remember every comm rushing armor 1.
Fairly unscientific, but out of curiosity, I just timed the process, testing on the map Veil. (In the process, I also discovered a funny placement glitch for aliens.)
Assuming you absolutely rush armor 1 at the expense of everything else, you can get a1 in around 2:20.
Hop in chair > Armory > Arms Lab > A1. Downside is a delay in capping RT's.
On the other hand, if you want to cap at least 2 nodes in the beginning, that seems to set you back to roughly the 3:10 mark or so, plus or minus a few seconds. I was doing this solo, so there was some time wasted running to West/Topo and back to build the RT + Power.
Hop in chair > Armory > RT > RT > Arms Lab > A1. Downside is delay in PG's.
In both, I forgot to account for an Obs for early scan.. whoops.
Switching over to aliens, I decided to try and see how quickly one could manage to get a shade plus an upgrade (I used silence as the stand-in for focus.)
Since there aren't too many building pre-reqs for this, I was able to accomplish it faster, resulting in the first Shade up in about 1:40, and Silence up at roughly the same time, just before the 2 minute mark.
Hop in Hive > Evolve Shade Hive > Cyst to East Junction > Cap C12 along the way > Drop Veil > Drop Shade > Upgrade Silence Veil. Downside is it's fairly resource intensive, and will delay second hive, and to do this sort of rush means you only have one well-placed Shade in the first 2 minutes.
I'm not sure why I bothered to test this, but I was curious. Haha.
Kinda fits the name focus as well -- you'd have to really place your bites as opposed to just holding down the button.