Foresight removal
CrushaK
Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167195Members, NS2 Playtester
Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167195Members, NS2 Playtester
So, what do you think about the removal of the khammander's Foresight?
It's not like I really miss it, but the absence still feels weird in some way. It was one of those nice asymmetric mechanics and actually gave the khammander something else to do (relaying information that the rest of the team otherwise doesn't have access to) than placing cysts. At least for marines walking on infestation could it have stayed.
Now your cysts are just mysteriously popping at some point without any indication to the khammander why that is. And it's not like marines are any closer to sneaky base building this way, since you still see the effects of Phase Gates, building structures and resupplying at Armories without any line of sight of your troops.
It's not like I really miss it, but the absence still feels weird in some way. It was one of those nice asymmetric mechanics and actually gave the khammander something else to do (relaying information that the rest of the team otherwise doesn't have access to) than placing cysts. At least for marines walking on infestation could it have stayed.
Now your cysts are just mysteriously popping at some point without any indication to the khammander why that is. And it's not like marines are any closer to sneaky base building this way, since you still see the effects of Phase Gates, building structures and resupplying at Armories without any line of sight of your troops.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Don't understand the intention behind removing one without the other.
Well, you can pretty much always tell where the Hive is based on where first contact occurs. If it was meant to be a secret, it's not a very well kept one.
The aliens can obscure this if they wish though, as is common in competitive games. The comm shouldn't be able to actually see where it is with 100% certainty.
First contact is something your team has control over, you could go all sneaky and not immediately give away what direction you came from, particularly in organised play. But as it stands currently that is impossible since the marine comm can just see egg and structure splashes at the start of the game.
Foresight removal is pretty much for the best - drifters + foresight enables aliens to know where the marines are and what they're doing 80% of the time while marines would have to invest alot of res to do the same thing.
You know you've been scanned, you don't know drifter is watching you.
Drifters are mobile.
Drifters can last forever.
Drifters provide buffs for aliens.
Drifters can attack.
Now, imagine scans traveling across the map, attacking gorgies and making marines reload twice as fast.
Very glad its removed. We've got drifters.
Those effect bugs have been reported for a while. They get fixed and come back again constantly..
Add a Remote Camera upgrade to MACs -> you get the marine equivalent to Drifters, just that they can't cloak themselves. But in return they can build stuff and keep your troops alive longer.
MACs already provide LoS.
Drifters are only useful as scouts in areas where there isn't observatory coverage.
They are still the equivalent of scans.
You can scan instantly in any room for 3 res, drifter's also cost 3 res, but they're a killable unit.
Ink is supposed to counter scans in theory, but it doesn't unless you know you're going to get scanned, and then there's a cooldown on it.
What with the sides being asymmetrical.
Also: The buff they provide?
Costs res.
As for their attack, it does roughly 10 damage a second.
If a solo drifter kills you, you're awful, considering you can kill them with very little effort.
edit:
There's also a hard cap on the amount of drifters you can have at once(5 per hive).
You can build as many observatories as you can afford, and scan as much as you can afford without any ill consequences except for the res cost.
I had it once that I was hovering Cargo (fully infested area) a long time (building cysts and a shift) and then dropped a Hive which got attacked just the second I dropped it. Didn't even hear the shooting sounds and no marines moving around.
I think that's a huge nerf since the marine commander can hear that stuff afaik (didn't play marine com since gorgeous). Or maybe I was unlucky, I dunno. Please enlighten me!
In addition, I think drifters are sometimes kind of buggy and don't show everything they should. And a khammander should be able to see if they are cloacked or not because there is an obs nearby. Or is there an indicator for uncloacked drifters? I always can't tell.
If you want to have complete coverage of a room, you have to build 2-3 drifters for that room, or find a location that has a good vantage point.
Drifter spam is a big deal in the game. They are far too cheap... too high of health... and they offer constant awareness of marines in all places in the map.
Nearly every competitive game you will see 7-10 drifters around the map. Even if you kill one they are replaced by a nearby one or simply rebuilt.
Drifters are the broken mechanic... not foresight.
Seems like a good compromise to me. If they add the feature in that way, I wouldn't mind getting at least the limited visual foresight back, i.e. seeing dark clouds when marines walk on infestation. Keep them completely invisible like they are now when they are not on infestation.
Alternatively they could make it so that you have to specialize the Drifter. You can buy a weak one for 3 res and then upgrade it for another 2 res per upgrade to a specialized one. Either with the Crag, Shade or Shift upgrade (but maybe without needing to have the respective tech path researched first). That way you can either go for a cheaper Drifter that is easier for marines to dispose of (doesn't take two magazines anymore) or the old powerful one at a higher cost.
Weak Drifter: 3 res
Cloaked Drifter with Hallucination: 5 res
Durable Drifter with Rupture: 5 res
Fast Drifter with Enzyme Cloud: 5 res
Cloaked fast Drifter with Hallucination and Enzyme Cloud: 7 res
Cloaked durable Drifter with Hallucination and Rupture: 7 res
Durable fast Drifter with Rupture and Enzyme Cloud: 7 res
Cloaked durable fast Drifter with Hallucination, Rupture and Enzyme Cloud: 9 res
Drifter spam is no different than spamming scans, except you can spam scans infinitely.
Drifters have a hard cap on the amount you can have out at once, and are hard countered by observatories.
IMO around hives and other important structures (upgrade champers, shifts, ...) they should be visible. Or give shades the foresight ability.
I just don't like the idea of marines running around near a hive without the khammander seeing or hearing them.
Ok, you could leave a drifter near every hive, but I think that drifters aren't ment for near hive scouting.
But I will do that from now on.