EZ Fix For the Current Pub Alien OP: No Power Requirement on Phase Gates, can build PG on creep.
rook2pawn
Join Date: 2008-07-03 Member: 64552Members
Join Date: 2008-07-03 Member: 64552Members
This singlehandedly bumps marines from slightly UP to at least equal or better than aliens.
Marines now can legitamately come back from being shut down to 1 hive,
aliens will ALWAYS have to scout for ninja PGs.
I think this would do alot to improve the state of the game without introducing weird ideas like getting out of the exos, making Cysts behave like power lines, etc....
Why? The idea I'm advocating has already been in PRACTICE for YEARS of PUBLIC PLAY ON NATURAL SELECTION SERVERS.
Marines now can legitamately come back from being shut down to 1 hive,
aliens will ALWAYS have to scout for ninja PGs.
I think this would do alot to improve the state of the game without introducing weird ideas like getting out of the exos, making Cysts behave like power lines, etc....
Why? The idea I'm advocating has already been in PRACTICE for YEARS of PUBLIC PLAY ON NATURAL SELECTION SERVERS.
Comments
Secondly power isn't what's stopping ninja phase gates. It adds a good amount of time on, but it's quite fast with welders. What restricts ninjas more than anything is that they have to kill a cyst to place the PG, an attentive alien comm (which is easy cause they have so little to do) will notice that, investigate and stop that plan in it's tracks.
Now if you made phase gates work on infestation (and without power for an extra buff), then it becomes very feasible and effective. Sending a force to attack one hive while 1/2 guys sneak a phase into another, then beacon, phase, goodbye hive.
That of course raises the issue of the alien team working together to keep marines going through a PG near their hive. But it makes sense for marines to go save their base over attacking a hive as a marine base goes down a hell lot faster than a hive usually does. That's what beaconing is for, after all. And this way there wouldn't have to be as many beacons, which would save the marine team valuable resources.
I'd rather have a system like that than have the useless system currently in place. It's just not organic to have teleportation technology where you can't even decide where you want to go. If PGs existed in reality, there's no way there wouldn't be a system where you could decide which other PG to go to. And it's just as senseless that such a function doesn't exist in a game.
Then you must not have played much NS1. Yes, there is a dependency, and yes, its absolutely beautiful because so much hinges on it.
oftentimes, you would rush in to just "touch build" the last ounce of a PG even though you knew you were goign to die in one second after doing so, but then a billion marines would come pouring out.
And vice versa, the PG is one of the absolute coolest things about NS.
.... your ideas are bad. PG cycle mechanics are one of the core concepts in that you have to go through in the cycle and keep track of how many times you are going through. The idea of having a popup interface when you have to select on screen the room you want to go to would be terrible for fluidity.
First of all, i've got thousands of hours playing NS1. The fact that you believe that the amount of time spent in a game with functions that has got "hinges" in its travel-system actually would make a person like these functions more, rather than less, doesn't make any sense anyhow.
Second, there is no beauty in hinges, unless you're the guy who makes them. What you're saying is that one of the coolest thing about NS is the fact that the PGs are as inefficient as they are, which you admit, and that you want to keep UWE from making any changes to this even when those changes could help balancing out the teams.
That's the most uncool statement i've seen so far in this forum. What the heck are you yapping about? Why do you want to keep the PG travel-system from seeing improvements?
Nonsense. It would be more fluid. You'd have the map show with numbers on each of the rooms with a PG, and those same numbers showing up on the left side of the screen with the name of the room to go to. It would be even easier to remember which number that represents each room compared to having to count your way through in the current way like you suggest. You'd quickly remember exactly which button that goes to which room as the moment you would hit 1-9 you'd end up in the one.
The commander could have these numbers showing next to PGs at all times and could then for example say "Everyone go into a phase-gate and press 3." which would take everyone to the right room very quickly.
It would just be another little thing to learn. Once people would understand how it works, teleporting would be way more productive and helpful than it is now.
As i explained in my first post, i would suggest that this system also comes with emergency teleportation where you'd automatically be taken to a room where a PG, CS or PN was under attack when you went through any PG and thus wouldn't waste any time at all under these most crucial situations, unlike in the current system which slows you down.
These two systems implemented together would make people wonder what took UWE so long to do this, including you.
I personally am in favor of the marine comm being able to prioritize a certain phase gate for a time, with a cooldown.
As far as making phases work with no power, could be interesting. I think either one or the other of the two ideas could help, but both together would be a bit much. Power is the prime restraint on marine structures, taking it away could unleash some strange happenings. Of the two, the better idea I'd say was the build phases on infestation. Power is really not much of a hurdle, especially if you only build/repair it to about ~90% until you need it.
Unless the sentry battery was repurposed to provide power to other structures as well. I think this used to be the case though I'm not sure how it worked. Perhaps having the battery buildable on infestation and it capable of providing power to any structure within its limited range. This would make it easily counterable by bile since the structures are all grouped closely.
Perhaps also buildings built on infestation take longer to build, have less health, or don't work quite as well (3/4 marines actually teleport to the phase on infestation, rather than all of them).
Squad 5 my butt.
Though my pg mechanic is over a year and a half old... Lol
Also to anyone who believes needlessly complicated mechanics are that way to be game balancing, may benefit from re-evaluating their ideas before posting them.
Argh, thread is hijacked. I did not imply PG mechanics are part of the game balance. That was merely my response that PG jumping has to be fluid without interaction. No one wants to be pushing buttons on an interface. That is horrible. Horrible for the User Experience.
My idea was about PG building without power and on creep. Please stop hijacking the thread.
And goodbye map control. No thanks
I was referring to someone else in the linked-to thread regarding phase gates. I have seen about 7 threads now over a year about this very issue. I made this thread back in august of 2011, which adds all the required functionalities requested; commander can set a default primary phase gate exit, and marines can pick their exit WHILE keeping the vanilla phase gate cycling mechanic untouched.
Not sure what you mean by that?
That marines would lose map control by doing that? I don't see how?
Or that Aliens would lose map control too easily and this ideas is OP? I kind of agree.
But your thread is about PG mechanics and their effect on game balance. No offense, but your posts aren't reading like English is your first language. No one has hijacked your thread.
And just because you read a book or whatever once that said buttons are "horrible for the user experience" doesn't make that some kind of absolute truth.
In my opinion its entirely too easy for aliens to deny access to an area by taking out the power and covering the area in infestation. If cysts die faster when disconnected, i think it would be fair, but as it stands, marines instantly lose ground when the power goes out, and then the area is covered in infestation which recedes very slowly and once section at a time.
With structures being built on infestation but slower, the power would still be a neccesity, and infestation would still serve as a deterrent to marine building, but marines would no longer be shut out of an area by two different mechanics.
It also makes a bit of difference that marines have to actively clear infestation (cysts) in order to get to building, while aliens don't really have to do anything to get to building up in an area.