Just lowering the cost of the welder or removing any price for it at all would be sufficient. I even like the suggestion of advanced armouries providing armour regeneration. There was a decent server side mod for ns1 where if you welded someone you would get a % back in regenerating your own armour, you'd get lots of people running around welding to just repair their own armour but in doing so repaired you as well. Which is always nice.
Ya I actually don't mind the change if 1 of those 2 options are implemented (if price of welder is not 0 then it would have to be 1 or 2 p.res.). As it stands now with this mod, it doesn't have either of those.
regarding the last page of armour healing, i still prefer the advanced armory idea.
competitive players wouldn't need to proxy armory if they got a free welder. it's only harmful to pub play where you're effectively saying "get a decent team or you're gonna die even more than before!".
as well as 'nerfing' the strength of proxy armory containment; the advanced armory idea also makes the building upgrade more than a 'one time' and doesn't turn welder into more of a no-brainer 'key to the kingdom' item.
For balance, both teams need to require some sort of personal investment to heal each other to full in combat. For Aliens now, it's Gorges. For Marines it should be Welders, but instead right now it is Armories. I hope this explains why the changes are good at not bad. It only takes a few seconds to weld your buddy to full.
That's not really a fair comparison. As it stands the aliens can go crag and drop crags for remote healing. However, most people don't go gorge and then hang around healing people the rest of the game. (endgame is different of course.) Remember, an alien can still heal armor at a hive, but marine can no longer heal armor at a base(armory). Can you imagine if armor healing was removed from the hive and aliens NEEDED gorges to restore their armor? It would totally change the game.
While I don't have a problem with the armor/welding thing in principle, if this is going to be the case then welders should be free. Why? Keeping the cost at 5 p-res creates an imbalanced resource sink. Marines will be constantly dropping 5 pres on welders for sake of healing while aliens won't have a similar personal resource sink. This means marines are at an inherent disadvantage for p-res.
Free welders (that would still need to be picked up at an armory) would satisfy the 'no armor from armory' change, but not put an expensive and unnecessary resource sink on marines.
regarding the last page of armour healing, i still prefer the advanced armory idea.
competitive players wouldn't need to proxy armory if they got a free welder. it's only harmful to pub play where you're effectively saying "get a decent team or you're gonna die even more than before!".
as well as 'nerfing' the strength of proxy armory containment; the advanced armory idea also makes the building upgrade more than a 'one time' and doesn't turn welder into more of a no-brainer 'key to the kingdom' item.
I don't really see what's accomplished by moving it to the advanced armory. You still have to deal with welding each other in the early game. May as well just rip off the bandaid at that point. Adding it to the AA just brings back all the drawbacks in the midgame - the only thing it resolves then is forward armories.
Also regarding my armory humping, if you watched my health bar I never got armor back, I was always healing just my health, and virsoul was spamming medpacks and nano shield on me. So that situation would have had the same outcome sans armory armor healing. My health bar never got above the point of where armor was being added.
Watch all the medpacks under my feet and the Tres drop down. Also I was further away from the armory when the 4 lifeforms were all on me before I got that last skulk shotgun kill.
Just saying that's probably a bad example to reference (even though it was badass) since it isn't really evidence of the armory armor healing doing anything.
Yea, just get rid of armor repair off both the armory and AA.
But to compensate, the pain-in-the-ass welder will definitely need a range increase.
I think the name "Welder" needs to go, and call it "nanite repair gun" or something similar. Give it some range (nothing drastic), give it a neato but classsy nantie effect to explain to players whats going on.... and morn the old boring welder some other time.
And please do add in the often used mechanic of healing others heals you. Promotes teamwork just that bit more.
Make welders free if you cant get repaired by the armory. Aliens have to go to hive to get armor back or healed by a gorge? The armor thing seems a bit overkill.
Also regarding my armory humping, if you watched my health bar I never got armor back, I was always healing just my health, and virsoul was spamming medpacks and nano shield on me. So that situation would have had the same outcome sans armory armor healing. My health bar never got above the point of where armor was being added.
Watch all the medpacks under my feet and the Tres drop down. Also I was further away from the armory when the 4 lifeforms were all on me before I got that last skulk shotgun kill.
Just saying that's probably a bad example to reference (even though it was badass) since it isn't really evidence of the armory armor healing doing anything.
Your health jumped up a few times to where it should be affecting armor and the moment you are talking about with the nanoshield is correct, but before and a bit after that the armor definitely could have made a difference. Also, after re-watching it there were fades involved so more props there. I wasn't trying to discount your play, you had some sick movement and aim in that engagement and used a mechanic that is legitimately part of the game (the armory). But that is neither here nor there.
I still feel my point stands that armories are ridiculous.
Oh ya, not trying to counter your point, I agree with you to a degree. I'm just saying that's not really worthy example since my armor was never actually healed from the armory (humping) DURING the engagements.
What I remember from beta when armories didn't heal armor:
Me: Hey Dude can you weld me? Dude: ::no response:: Me: Dude! Can you weld me?! Dude: no welder Me: Here, use mine! [Drops Welder] Dude:[Drops LMG] [Fumbles Picking Up LMG] [Picks Up Welder] [Welds] [Runs Off] Me: Hey, can I have that back?! Dude:[Turns Around] how? Me: Press G! Dude:[Drops LMG]
Thats just a point to show how ridiculous nanoshield really can be. Armories healing armor is a really bad addition that hurts the teamplay that marines used to require, and also makes marine turtling way more effective than it should be.
Also, we tried the tiered alien trait system and three levels of alien upgrades (i.e. carapace) in beta and they didn't work. The alien trait system removed a lot of choice from alien commanders (which is already isn't terribly interesting to play) and the upgrades were non-intuitive and caused a lot of redundancy/clutter. I feel like this is just going back a year in balance with some of these changes.
the tiered alien trait system was never tried before, not like this. Augmentation and other changes were different from this implementation.
Upgrades for the aliens that scale actually add more choices, both to the player and the comm. You can choose to get tier 1 cara then an rt, or 2 rts then later get the upgrades. I suggest you actually try out the changes before dismissing them.
I have tried the mod. Lets say you want to get carapace, adrenaline, leap, blink and bile bomb. That's pretty much standard bread and butter for aliens (unless you go shade). The current cost is 200. In the mod it's 340. The research time is also higher to reach that goal as well.
Also, why should a team be forced in to buying tech they don't want just to get to tech they do need. That's like requiring flamethrowers to start jet packs.
The better balance is to make upgrades more equally viable.
Maybe with these changes fade hp should be buffed? I always thought it could use slightly some extra hp/armor, but if you lose a fade now you probably wont have the tres to drop new fade eggs due to the new res sinks. Thoughts?
Also, the spores are kind of meh. by the time spores come up (if ever) marines have shotguns, and a lerk can't really be in that range. Maybe ranged spores again? weaker umbra on 2nd hive instead?
Regarding the skulk movement I think it feels kind of, hm.. The word I'm thinking of is syrup, but that doesn't really do it justice. What about something similar to bhop but only using your w and air controll to gain speed (as in having to basically do the same left/right jumping as with bunnyjumping. Easy, predictable and easily learned. I don't know, it might have tons of flaws. I'd also like to see more responsive side-stepping, or.. well faster side ways stepping.
I don't think the comm choosing the individual upgrades adds anything of substance to the game. It just gives him an economic incentive to skimp on his team's upgrade choices. If the alien comm needs more to do, there are other ways to accomplish that.
If you think alien tres situation in the live build is good, I have no idea what to tell you. Basically aliens just have to survive on 3 rts for 12-15 minutes, and then just keep buying fades.
Ideally I hope to see fades be buffed and made more consistent via switching blink/shadowstep, tweaking both of those abilities, and gaining more HP. Also I hope the tres drops will be vastly reduced or even eliminated.
The movement is still very much a WIP from the notes on the mod.
I still maintain that Blink and Shadowstep should be combined into one ability - let's be honest here, they do the same thing - and Metabolize brought back at hive 2. Fades just aren't the same without it, the hit and run class should have an ability to reduce downtime.
So as stated before by me and others, the khamm gets even less important with these changes. True he gets some drifter abilities but lets be honest, they wont make for a fun AND challanging experiance for khamms.
So at first this sounds like alot but just think about if we can't distribute alot of these on players in ways that make as much or even more sense than letting the khamm do it.
Let's start with the Drifter stuff.
I think both camo and regen are kind of questionable at a whole because basically that's a moving shade/crag. so the question is why do we need moving shades/crags? I don't think so because of the way shades and crags are built without khamm.
I think it would be great to give hallucinate to the Fade to enhance his role as a assassin/hit'n'run character. I think we all agree Vortex is kind of broken and hallucinate would be a great replacement/addition. I can even imagine that giving the Fade a choice between the hallucination and the celerity ability(now on Drifters) would make sense as they both fit his role perfectly.
Enzymes sound like a great addition for the Lerk. He could spray his fellow aliens with enzymes. It would fit his role as a offensive supporter perfectly bnecause after all, he's all about spraying some kind of gas/cloud/whatever.
This leaves all the building stuff. I remember a game that was quite similar to NS2 and had this builder class which would build Hives, rts, Whiplike things, upgrade chambers. I wont mention the name of this other game but I think the idea behind this builder class was awesome and there are many a players that really loved to play this class. It kind of played like having field khammanders which could build. Teamplay was really promoted because if one of these builders died especially in early game it really hurt.
So I suggest to put all the building towards the Gorge as he is the closest we got to a builder in NS2. Replace the Hydra with the whip and add the other buildings. One could even think about combining crag/shell, shift/spur/ and shade/veil into one building each but that may be too extreme.
Of course the gorge would require more pres than at the present state of the game. I suggest to either alter the ration of res distribution within the team towards favouring the gorge or to distribute what is tres today between the gorges. The latter option probably fits more into the current cost system.
So the only things left are the eggs and the lifeform abilities. Let's start with the latter.
I can imagine two solutions:
First, gorges build a upgrade structure and choose which upgrades it unlocks.
Second, Hives mature over time, taking a certain amount of tres as "upkeep" which replaces the current upgrade cost. Upon maturing, they unlock abilities. It kind of is like a passive biomass system. One could think about giving gorges/all lifeforms the ability to give pres to a hive to speed up the maturing process.
Lastly, the lifeform eggs. I think as gorges get all the tres, they could as well place lifeform eggs now. Also, I think it would be nice if all players could fertilize normal eggs with their current lifeform. So if youre a Lerk you can hump an egg, loose 30 pres and create a lerk egg in the process.
I know these a alot of changes and means a complete Overhaul but I believe very strongly that if realized properly, this would result in a much better experiance and foremost much more teamplay on the alien side. Please think about what the game could be without the khamm and how different the player experiance would be for aliens.
Love all the changes here, especially Biomass. No ability left behind!
I like how the Armory-no-armor-repair change may promote early MAC investment. If MACs can get some more love (like no research required for EMP), then that would be great.
puzlThe Old FirmJoin Date: 2003-02-26Member: 14029Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
Some excellent changes here.
Why would anyone bring a welder when a forward armoury takes the monotony out of armour replenishment?
Armouries healing armour is a terrible idea. The simple act of welding your team mates encouraged so much squad behaviour in NS1. People too stupid to weld each other deserve to die. Remember marines passing a welder around before pushing on?
It seems like most people are overlooking the movement changes. It shoud be pointed out that the movement code has been almost completely rewritten and is now a lot closer Quake/GldSrc (although without the peculiarities that lead to bunny hopping). Air friction has been removed which means that it's much easier to maintain the speed gained from wall jumping and fall acceleration, but at the same time the way acceleration is handled means that the air control scales with speed. Overall I'd say everything feels a lot smoother. With a bit of tweaking I hope we can get these changes into vanilla.
Also, I'm a huge proponent of armouries not repairing armour. Now we just need a proper drop/pick up system (read: G to drop/throw + auto pick up) so that we can pass welders around without getting aneurysms.
Armouries healing armour is a terrible idea. The simple act of welding your team mates encouraged so much squad behaviour in NS1. People too stupid to weld each other deserve to die. Remember marines passing a welder around before pushing on?
This
I still maintain that Blink and Shadowstep should be combined into one ability - let's be honest here, they do the same thing - and Metabolize brought back at hive 2. Fades just aren't the same without it, the hit and run class should have an ability to reduce downtime
Kind of agree, while I don't mind blink & shadowstep it just feels odd having both. It's as if the fade got to a point were the devs weren't quite sure what direction to go with it... and left it at that.
regarding the last page of armour healing, i still prefer the advanced armory idea.
competitive players wouldn't need to proxy armory if they got a free welder. it's only harmful to pub play where you're effectively saying "get a decent team or you're gonna die even more than before!".
as well as 'nerfing' the strength of proxy armory containment; the advanced armory idea also makes the building upgrade more than a 'one time' and doesn't turn welder into more of a no-brainer 'key to the kingdom' item.
I don't really see what's accomplished by moving it to the advanced armory. You still have to deal with welding each other in the early game. May as well just rip off the bandaid at that point. Adding it to the AA just brings back all the drawbacks in the midgame - the only thing it resolves then is forward armories.
you're still assuming that marines are a functioning unit... i wish i always had a good team, but you can only pray it happens on a pub server...
you'd just have no good way to regenerate armor and it would further increase the gap between bad marine teams and good alien teams, while barely changing anything for good marine teams. that would just make the game more frustrating with no benefit.
i see it causing more harm than good, therefore it doesn't appear logical.
Regarding the armor healing, I'd like to see a "nanite" regen of the armor : either trough a research on the armory or unlocked with advanced armory.
Nanite would be "injected" once health reaches 100 and slowly regen armor.
The process would stop as soon as the marine would get hit.
This would remove the huge power of foward armories and not make the use of welders/mac mandatory.
Regarding the armor healing, I'd like to see a "nanite" regen of the armor : either trough a research on the armory or unlocked with advanced armory.
Nanite would be "injected" once health reaches 100 and slowly regen armor.
The process would stop as soon as the marine would get hit.
This would remove the huge power of foward armories and not make the use of welders/mac mandatory.
or simplify that and just negate armory healing while in combat... soooo parasite/spores/bilebomb mean no healing hp or armour.
the code for 'combat' status is already in place, should be easy to implement.
Comments
Ya I actually don't mind the change if 1 of those 2 options are implemented (if price of welder is not 0 then it would have to be 1 or 2 p.res.). As it stands now with this mod, it doesn't have either of those.
competitive players wouldn't need to proxy armory if they got a free welder. it's only harmful to pub play where you're effectively saying "get a decent team or you're gonna die even more than before!".
as well as 'nerfing' the strength of proxy armory containment; the advanced armory idea also makes the building upgrade more than a 'one time' and doesn't turn welder into more of a no-brainer 'key to the kingdom' item.
While I don't have a problem with the armor/welding thing in principle, if this is going to be the case then welders should be free. Why? Keeping the cost at 5 p-res creates an imbalanced resource sink. Marines will be constantly dropping 5 pres on welders for sake of healing while aliens won't have a similar personal resource sink. This means marines are at an inherent disadvantage for p-res.
Free welders (that would still need to be picked up at an armory) would satisfy the 'no armor from armory' change, but not put an expensive and unnecessary resource sink on marines.
I don't really see what's accomplished by moving it to the advanced armory. You still have to deal with welding each other in the early game. May as well just rip off the bandaid at that point. Adding it to the AA just brings back all the drawbacks in the midgame - the only thing it resolves then is forward armories.
Watch all the medpacks under my feet and the Tres drop down. Also I was further away from the armory when the 4 lifeforms were all on me before I got that last skulk shotgun kill.
Just saying that's probably a bad example to reference (even though it was badass) since it isn't really evidence of the armory armor healing doing anything.
Few Issues:
*Stomp is available before it's researched
*Leap animation seems to break occasionally
Also, any chance celerity could affect shadowstep and blink to give a reason to choose it over adren ?
But to compensate, the pain-in-the-ass welder will definitely need a range increase.
I think the name "Welder" needs to go, and call it "nanite repair gun" or something similar. Give it some range (nothing drastic), give it a neato but classsy nantie effect to explain to players whats going on.... and morn the old boring welder some other time.
And please do add in the often used mechanic of healing others heals you. Promotes teamwork just that bit more.
Mannnnn no kidding skulk jumping feels pretty neat in this mod. I could not get the upgrades to work though. Like celerity/carapace etc.
I still feel my point stands that armories are ridiculous.
Me: Hey Dude can you weld me?
Dude: ::no response::
Me: Dude! Can you weld me?!
Dude: no welder
Me: Here, use mine! [Drops Welder]
Dude: [Drops LMG] [Fumbles Picking Up LMG] [Picks Up Welder] [Welds] [Runs Off]
Me: Hey, can I have that back?!
Dude: [Turns Around] how?
Me: Press G!
Dude: [Drops LMG]
Upgrades for the aliens that scale actually add more choices, both to the player and the comm. You can choose to get tier 1 cara then an rt, or 2 rts then later get the upgrades. I suggest you actually try out the changes before dismissing them.
Also, why should a team be forced in to buying tech they don't want just to get to tech they do need. That's like requiring flamethrowers to start jet packs.
The better balance is to make upgrades more equally viable.
Also, the spores are kind of meh. by the time spores come up (if ever) marines have shotguns, and a lerk can't really be in that range. Maybe ranged spores again? weaker umbra on 2nd hive instead?
Regarding the skulk movement I think it feels kind of, hm.. The word I'm thinking of is syrup, but that doesn't really do it justice. What about something similar to bhop but only using your w and air controll to gain speed (as in having to basically do the same left/right jumping as with bunnyjumping. Easy, predictable and easily learned. I don't know, it might have tons of flaws. I'd also like to see more responsive side-stepping, or.. well faster side ways stepping.
Ideally I hope to see fades be buffed and made more consistent via switching blink/shadowstep, tweaking both of those abilities, and gaining more HP. Also I hope the tres drops will be vastly reduced or even eliminated.
The movement is still very much a WIP from the notes on the mod.
So why not be extreme and remove it.
Let's recap on his responsibilities:
- RTs
- Hives
- Cysts
- upgrade chambers(shell,spur,veil)
- spend res on biomass
- whips
- Shift/Crag/Shade
- Drifters:
- Passives:
- camo
- celerity
- regen
- Actives:
- halluciante
- enzymes
- rupture
- Lifeform eggs
- Bonewall
- Mist
So at first this sounds like alot but just think about if we can't distribute alot of these on players in ways that make as much or even more sense than letting the khamm do it.
Let's start with the Drifter stuff.
I think both camo and regen are kind of questionable at a whole because basically that's a moving shade/crag. so the question is why do we need moving shades/crags? I don't think so because of the way shades and crags are built without khamm.
I think it would be great to give hallucinate to the Fade to enhance his role as a assassin/hit'n'run character. I think we all agree Vortex is kind of broken and hallucinate would be a great replacement/addition. I can even imagine that giving the Fade a choice between the hallucination and the celerity ability(now on Drifters) would make sense as they both fit his role perfectly.
Enzymes sound like a great addition for the Lerk. He could spray his fellow aliens with enzymes. It would fit his role as a offensive supporter perfectly bnecause after all, he's all about spraying some kind of gas/cloud/whatever.
This leaves all the building stuff. I remember a game that was quite similar to NS2 and had this builder class which would build Hives, rts, Whiplike things, upgrade chambers. I wont mention the name of this other game but I think the idea behind this builder class was awesome and there are many a players that really loved to play this class. It kind of played like having field khammanders which could build. Teamplay was really promoted because if one of these builders died especially in early game it really hurt.
So I suggest to put all the building towards the Gorge as he is the closest we got to a builder in NS2. Replace the Hydra with the whip and add the other buildings. One could even think about combining crag/shell, shift/spur/ and shade/veil into one building each but that may be too extreme.
Of course the gorge would require more pres than at the present state of the game. I suggest to either alter the ration of res distribution within the team towards favouring the gorge or to distribute what is tres today between the gorges. The latter option probably fits more into the current cost system.
So the only things left are the eggs and the lifeform abilities. Let's start with the latter.
I can imagine two solutions:
First, gorges build a upgrade structure and choose which upgrades it unlocks.
Second, Hives mature over time, taking a certain amount of tres as "upkeep" which replaces the current upgrade cost. Upon maturing, they unlock abilities. It kind of is like a passive biomass system. One could think about giving gorges/all lifeforms the ability to give pres to a hive to speed up the maturing process.
Lastly, the lifeform eggs. I think as gorges get all the tres, they could as well place lifeform eggs now. Also, I think it would be nice if all players could fertilize normal eggs with their current lifeform. So if youre a Lerk you can hump an egg, loose 30 pres and create a lerk egg in the process.
I know these a alot of changes and means a complete Overhaul but I believe very strongly that if realized properly, this would result in a much better experiance and foremost much more teamplay on the alien side. Please think about what the game could be without the khamm and how different the player experiance would be for aliens.
I like how the Armory-no-armor-repair change may promote early MAC investment. If MACs can get some more love (like no research required for EMP), then that would be great.
Why would anyone bring a welder when a forward armoury takes the monotony out of armour replenishment?
Armouries healing armour is a terrible idea. The simple act of welding your team mates encouraged so much squad behaviour in NS1. People too stupid to weld each other deserve to die. Remember marines passing a welder around before pushing on?
Also, I'm a huge proponent of armouries not repairing armour. Now we just need a proper drop/pick up system (read: G to drop/throw + auto pick up) so that we can pass welders around without getting aneurysms.
This
Kind of agree, while I don't mind blink & shadowstep it just feels odd having both. It's as if the fade got to a point were the devs weren't quite sure what direction to go with it... and left it at that.
you're still assuming that marines are a functioning unit... i wish i always had a good team, but you can only pray it happens on a pub server...
you'd just have no good way to regenerate armor and it would further increase the gap between bad marine teams and good alien teams, while barely changing anything for good marine teams. that would just make the game more frustrating with no benefit.
i see it causing more harm than good, therefore it doesn't appear logical.
Regarding the armor healing, I'd like to see a "nanite" regen of the armor : either trough a research on the armory or unlocked with advanced armory.
Nanite would be "injected" once health reaches 100 and slowly regen armor.
The process would stop as soon as the marine would get hit.
This would remove the huge power of foward armories and not make the use of welders/mac mandatory.
or simplify that and just negate armory healing while in combat... soooo parasite/spores/bilebomb mean no healing hp or armour.
the code for 'combat' status is already in place, should be easy to implement.