ability to charge up melee attacks
schkorpio
I can mspaint Join Date: 2003-05-23 Member: 16635Members
I can mspaint Join Date: 2003-05-23 Member: 16635Members
<div class="IPBDescription">for both teams</div>Another idea about the flow and pacing of close range combat.
In martial arts fighting and/or sword fighting games, a lot of the time you are able to hold down a button to charge up a stronger attack. So since there is a large amount of melee in NS2 why not do something similar?
It gives battles a very nice timing skill aspect - instead of just spamming melee as much as you can.
<!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->The way it would work is: <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
You hold your attack button to charge up your attack (full charge would be at 1 to 1.5 seconds)- however the attack can only remain in the charged state for 2-3 seconds (so that you can't just keep it held down all of the time).
Edit: the idea behind it is that you all melee classes/weapons would have a nice pattern/flow to their combat - you would have a pattern of attack-dodge while charging up - attack. over and over until one person wins.
This would be applicable to all (or most melee attacks anyway) and perhaps even some gorge abilities like spit. This would work really well for the Claw on the exo too, and perhaps even the marine axe.
a charged up attack would do much more damage than a normal one - a full charged up attack would take say 1.5 seconds, however you would do 2.0 seconds worth of normal melee damage
(infact I would lower the default attack damage, to encourage the use of the charged up attacks)
<!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->Charge up is counter to medspam <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Since with 1 charged up attack you could kill a marine with no armor left in 1 hit, it means that med spam would be useless once a marine is stripped of most of his armor - since health alone won't be enough to keep the marine alive against a charged up attack.
So then this also reinforces the importance of armor stripping weapons like spores and bilebomb and lerk spikes etc
edit: the reason i'm posting this is because a lot of modern games have no flow to the combat (ns2 does pretty well though, but it could be better) e.g in say battlefield 3 - i stopped playing it because the way the combat plays out - you'd don't see / hear your opponent, and then have a showdown / battle with them for a 5 to 30seconds (or even more). in bf3 if someone sees you before you see them, you are dead (unless they can't aim for sh*t) there is no actually battle or chance to do a few counters or usually even a way to avoid being hit.
In martial arts fighting and/or sword fighting games, a lot of the time you are able to hold down a button to charge up a stronger attack. So since there is a large amount of melee in NS2 why not do something similar?
It gives battles a very nice timing skill aspect - instead of just spamming melee as much as you can.
<!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->The way it would work is: <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
You hold your attack button to charge up your attack (full charge would be at 1 to 1.5 seconds)- however the attack can only remain in the charged state for 2-3 seconds (so that you can't just keep it held down all of the time).
Edit: the idea behind it is that you all melee classes/weapons would have a nice pattern/flow to their combat - you would have a pattern of attack-dodge while charging up - attack. over and over until one person wins.
This would be applicable to all (or most melee attacks anyway) and perhaps even some gorge abilities like spit. This would work really well for the Claw on the exo too, and perhaps even the marine axe.
a charged up attack would do much more damage than a normal one - a full charged up attack would take say 1.5 seconds, however you would do 2.0 seconds worth of normal melee damage
(infact I would lower the default attack damage, to encourage the use of the charged up attacks)
<!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->Charge up is counter to medspam <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Since with 1 charged up attack you could kill a marine with no armor left in 1 hit, it means that med spam would be useless once a marine is stripped of most of his armor - since health alone won't be enough to keep the marine alive against a charged up attack.
So then this also reinforces the importance of armor stripping weapons like spores and bilebomb and lerk spikes etc
edit: the reason i'm posting this is because a lot of modern games have no flow to the combat (ns2 does pretty well though, but it could be better) e.g in say battlefield 3 - i stopped playing it because the way the combat plays out - you'd don't see / hear your opponent, and then have a showdown / battle with them for a 5 to 30seconds (or even more). in bf3 if someone sees you before you see them, you are dead (unless they can't aim for sh*t) there is no actually battle or chance to do a few counters or usually even a way to avoid being hit.
Comments
Focus
Focus<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
basically yes :)
except you can choose to charge up or not.
and also there would be some kind of sound to indicate that the melee attack is being charged up, so that the other team knows that they might need to dodge.
Yep you got it in one, i want to implement this specifically to annoy you.....</sarcam>
But you do bring up a good point, so obviously the mechanics of it would have to change - i'd say the easiet way would be to have it context based that if you are right next to an extractor and specifically aiming at an extractor (or any marine building i guess) then the charge up doesnt happen. As long as its reliable.
<!--quoteo(post=2024848:date=Nov 16 2012, 06:18 AM:name=Haze)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Haze @ Nov 16 2012, 06:18 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024848"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't think this is a necessary change. Cumbersome for new players, and being able to charge up your first bite when they don't see you yet would be a huge advantage for Aliens over Marines. This would require all sorts of balancing that we don't need to delve into right now when the game itself still needs tweaks on a larger scope. This is something that could have worked if it were implemented early in the game as a cornerstone feature of the combat system.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't necessarily think its cumbersome for new players, they can still bite the normal way if they want - but having extra advanced features for skilled players to take advantage I'm all for. A bit like learning how to bunny hop can make you a better player (not quite as complicated sure, but the idea is the same i think) Give dedicated players a new skill to learn.
I can forsee that the first bite would probably a big advantage, which is why I think a specific sound effect could be played, so that you aren't suprised by someone waiting around the corner, you get a slight audible warning - just like with xenocide.
Plus because you can only have your attacked charged up for a short period 2-3 seconds, you would really only be able to use it just before you attack.
My aim with this is certainly not to have an ability that would be annoying for the marines - its, more to give the combat a nice flow.
Sure you can still use it if you are waiting on the ceiling, but the sound effect would give you away just before you attack - think of say aliens movie when the alien will foam at the mouth and hiss and the camera zooms in onto their face/teeth just before they pounce. The marine has a split second of gonig "oh sh*t" before they die :) I think with the charge up sound effect and the 2-3 second time of being able to hold a charge up attack before it resets, then it "should" work out. I think it would be better than focus in terms of balance and more skillful for gameplay.
Balance wise yeah, it could very well mean some changes would have to be made. Certainly charging up with silence and/or leap/blink would be deadly in the hands of a skilled player (as was Focus in ns1). But i believe balance is an ongoing thing and there will be tweaks and changes regardless. Edit : what I mean is that balance is an iterative processes, happening on small step at a time (usually) and isn't suddenly fixed in one patch or one go as usually any change can make a whole bunch of different outcomes.
I think you've overlooked the simplest option. Have it only work outside of combat. After that first bite, charged up or not, you can chomp away all night.
Hell no.
No to more advantages for skilled players.
No to bunny hopping.
You have laser accurate, stupid high rate of fire automatic weapons with no recoil.
You have 100 MPH melee gameplay with no target locking.
This game is already setup for experienced players to win it... these are the guys who f*** ambushing from shadows, just run in and jump and spin a lot.
Alien dog attacking you? No problem, jump and spin while firing laser beam of lead. One thing I have learned about alien dogs from this game is they miss with their mouths a lot, and you can jump over them.
Why does every game in the hybrid FPS/RTS genre need to be dominated by elitist ######?
The capabilities of each side might be balanced, but there's this ridiculous intentional skill gap amongst players that INEVITABLY leads to team stacking. You see it in every game in the genre, Savage, Nuclear Dawn, this.
Next you'll probably want some gimmick to block melee attacks that requires precise timing I bet, you know, to counter this once all the scrubs learn it. Then they can add like.. dodging, and massive headshot rewards. Hell, just take all the elitist parts of Savage AND ND, so you can tap into the HUUUUUGE playerbase they have left. Hell, just build in automated tea bagging and some hats for Christ's sake.
Whatever you do, don't ask for it to be "eeeeeeeassssy" like Left For Dead, where strategy and positioning win over jumping around like a retard.
Hi Jeehao, thanks for asking such a good question.
Let make take some time to explain to you why this wouldnt be the case.
I can see two reasons why one shooting a marine wouldn't happen.
1. You adjust the damage accordingly so that it would still be two hits to take down a level 0 armor marine as a skulk. so you'd need to follow up with a bite or parasite. (even at full charge).
2. You uncloak when you attack, and I would consider a charge up as an attack, so this would also uncloak you. Even if it didn't uncloak you - like I have already stated a few times above, your charged up attack will only remain charged for a 2-3 second period before it resets. And since you have to walk very slowly as to keep your cloak on, chances are you won't be able to reach that marine in time, or you will have to break your cloak to do so.
3. nobody uses cloak because it sucks. :P
The capabilities of each side might be balanced, but there's this ridiculous intentional skill gap amongst players that INEVITABLY leads to team stacking. You see it in every game in the genre, Savage, Nuclear Dawn, this.
Next you'll probably want some gimmick to block melee attacks that requires precise timing I bet, you know, to counter this once all the scrubs learn it. Then they can add like.. dodging, and massive headshot rewards. Hell, just take all the elitist parts of Savage AND ND, so you can tap into the HUUUUUGE playerbase they have left.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree, that one single good beast melee player can go 1 vs 10 in Savage and dominate them all. But considering one team usually consisting of 30-40 players, this isn't really an issue in pubs. In competitive play the high skill ceiling doesn't really result into stacks either as everyone is damn good, so even the best players won't manage to go more than 1 vs 3.
Savage had never a big playerbase and was abandoned a half year after release, including all S2Games server shut down (all development since 2004 was fan based), but it's still alive after almost 10 years and got an active competitive scene (World Cup 2012: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxPDDaRr_iw)" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxPDDaRr_iw)</a>. If Savage didn't feature that amazing combat system (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pQxiAmgstM) that takes years to master and is the most unique and enjoyable part of the game according to veterans, I'm sure Savage wouldn't have survived 2005 - especially without any S2Games support.
Now let's have a look at Savage 2. S2Games removed all the frustrating parts of Savage, removed the racial asymmetries (and kept it purely aesthetical), completely redesigned the combat system to something newbie friendly, made the game class instead of loadout based, made movement a matter of character skill, removed worker based resource gathering (like in starcraft) to automated gathering, removed red stone from the game and kept only gold which is available infinitely. They removed all the building placement skill from the RTS mode and automated the tech research. The Savage 2 commander is now just a buff wh.ore. Furthermore most units and weapons are available for free, while in Savage 1 player/team gold management was very crucial. And many many simplifications more...
S2Games basically remade Savage 1 from scratch into something attracting casuals. So, what happened?
<b>Yes, tons of casuals came - but as typical for the nature of casuals, they also quit again just as fast.</b> Savage 1 players didn't move on to Savage 2 for obvious reasons and the Savage 2 clan/competitive scene never grew strong. Savage 2 died in less than a year because S2Games pissed off the existing playerbase and they rejected it, so they had to make it free2play in the end of 2008. Despite of the great exposure on all different MMORPG sites (lol!), the help of popular youtubers and official S2Games servers running until today, Savage 2 is only half as popular as Savage 1.
As you can see, a great original combat system and high skill cap can affect the long term rentention rate positively to an extreme extend. It will scare away players that lack dedication, but they would move on anyway as soon as a new shiny game is being released.