What Exactly Are Babblers For?
rmbrown09
Join Date: 2012-10-17 Member: 162592Members
Join Date: 2012-10-17 Member: 162592Members
I don't want hate on a new feature, but Babblers to me seem useless. I play gorge 70% of the time I am Alien and I always random. I like to think of myself as a proficient builder defender type. I can battle gorge but prefer locking down a new hive, advancing room by room with clogs and hydras.
The Babblers seem weak and pointless to me. As a marine all they ever seem to do is get in the way a little. Certainly not something that is scary. As a alien putting them on myself means I can take a few extra bullets, but that never has saved me in a situation and most of the rest of the time I give it to a skulk fade lerk or whatever, they seem to just fall off or die immediately.
The one instance where they seemed ok was clogging off a doorway and constantly creating more, throwing my bait ball over the wall and having them distract the marines on the other side. Again though them seem to be such a tiny factor in the game. Something that is certainly not a game changer like the tunnels. I think if they received a speed buff so that marines actually had to take notice, or perhaps had more bite or health.
tldr; what do i do with these things.
The Babblers seem weak and pointless to me. As a marine all they ever seem to do is get in the way a little. Certainly not something that is scary. As a alien putting them on myself means I can take a few extra bullets, but that never has saved me in a situation and most of the rest of the time I give it to a skulk fade lerk or whatever, they seem to just fall off or die immediately.
The one instance where they seemed ok was clogging off a doorway and constantly creating more, throwing my bait ball over the wall and having them distract the marines on the other side. Again though them seem to be such a tiny factor in the game. Something that is certainly not a game changer like the tunnels. I think if they received a speed buff so that marines actually had to take notice, or perhaps had more bite or health.
tldr; what do i do with these things.
Comments
The armor effect could be a nice use for them if they stayed attached until they were shot off. I think they only last 20 seconds currently, which is way too short to be useful.
All they seem to be currently is distractions. As a marine, I generally ignore them.
Exactly. It's like a child jumping at you for attention and they want to be picked up. You just ignore them until you deal with important things going on around you and then turn them into a pile of goo when you're done.
The bait ball needs work, personally I don't think you can throw it far enough. Also, the babblers don't seem too aggressive even when marines are near the bait ball. They actually seem to attack better when you spit ball them, but they need to be more 'enthusiastic'.
Also, when you have them attached to you, you can no longer fire the bait ball!
Personally I think they should be free, and once a couple of areas are fixed and tweaked they will be fine. As a distraction they are cool (as Hugh mentioned), but I'd like to see them jumping into the paths of grenades if they go by and similar. They look sort of like fleas, so maybe latching onto jetpackers to bring them to the ground would be cool. Why do they need to do damage?
I'd like to see them as an extension of the gorge, more than a purchasable entity.
I can understand why they could have been intentionally made weak to prevent it from becoming to powerful a tactic for the early-game combat, but in their current form they are just too useless. I would rather they be another purchasable hive upgrade and become much more violent and damaging. A good example would be the 'Narks' or 'Nerks', whatever they are called from the original Half life. Those little bastards had moderate damage but it was mainly the fact that they would always be right up in your face biting that was their main strength.
As for the tennis ball, I would prefer it if it had more range and did not send the Move/Attack order to your Babblers until it either hits a target or the first piece of terrain. Many times I have sent them off to attack, but as soon as the ball is fired the Babblers will attempt to move straight to it causing them to real back temporarily making them step backwards and forwards.
Here are some ideas on how I think the Babblers could have been implemented.
keep up with a none-belly sliding gorge.
- A completed Babbler Egg must be manually 'used' ( press E ) after they are built
to pop* the egg and spawn the babblers that will then attach/follow whichever
player 'used' the egg allowing for easier babbler assignment.
- Un-popped eggs act as 'land mines' and are activated by passing marines,
causing the babblers to spawn and attack.
- Babblers cannot be guided but instead follow/attach to a player and blindly attack
any target that comes into close range. After engaging a target the babbler is no
longer bound to the player, but still counts towards the gorges maximum amount.
- Babblers can be encouraged with the Spit attack to focus on a specific target from
any Gorge.
- Babblers could have a higher resource cost (2-3 maybe) in order to justify smarter
and more violent AI with higher damage output.
I really like the idea of babbler eggs working like Landmines and would make for some cool 'OH SHIT' moments in multi-player when you get some sneaky-rambo-marines accidentally triggering all three eggs.
Or...I was thinking on the Snark as well. They should be useable like an alien weapon...well...just like Snarks. Buy 5-10 ammo for one res (depending on the damage).
But whatever they will be, I just hope they don't vanish after 2mins, I payed for them! :P
The only time I really use them is if I need to ninja a power node. Drop the babblers first, make them attack the node and start bile bombing.
Organized and unorganized ambushes
2 gorges put 18 of them down just after a doorway and marines would think twice about rushing in to shoot them
They also aren't that bad in a pinch if I'm running from marines so long as I'm running away on infestation
You can also use them for extra DPS while trying to stealthily kill a power node if you have the extra time to set it up
I attach them to fades a lot and you should probably do so too
Most of the time they're pretty much harmless cannon fodder though. Could use a small buff (or smarter AI), maybe at increased pres cost if necessary imo.
I like this idea. Especially the jetpack part. I also think they would be more interesting as specialized support units, which is what would be their role as an extension of the gorge.
I am never hiring you to babysit my kids.
solid point if correct.
Also babbler egg 'mines' would be cool. ie. they dont hatch when fully grown unless the parent gorge presses 'e' or a marine strolls by. might cross the 'asymetry line, but it would be worth it. Fill a hive room with babbler eggs, then wait for it....
(embedded time doesn't want to work, skip to 1:20 to save time)
is this played out yet?
NO.
When they get shot/killed do new ones jump on if available?
When you get shot do they protect you regardless of where you are shot?
When I spend pres on something, that something should last until destroyed. And what's the point of spending pres on them, putting them on someone (which in itself is finicky) only to have them decide to hop off the person (and then sit there doing essentially nothing) because the fight lasted longer than 20 seconds or they didn't get into the fight right away?
Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of babblers and seriously hope that their AI gets a major fix, but atm, I don't feel that they are worth any cost with how useless they are and all of their hidden numbers. I don't feel that they would be worth the hassle for the majority of the game even if they were free.
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/128632/babblers-stick-to-marines
This would be an offensive buff, and increase the threat of Babblers.They're harmless when they are far away, but if that gorge gets a lucky bait ball, you can be screwed.
If you want to increase their defensive capabilities, then this is an interesting idea
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/128855/acid-blabbers
This gives a second reason not to shoot the babblers, as it can deplete your armor. This also gives more bite to flying lerks, as shooting a lerk while it flies over your base can also drop acid.
You could hypothetically do both, but at that point it'd make more sense to raise the pRes cost.