The thing is if we remove any research abilities and just link everything to biomass that makes the alien commander even less interesting than it already is. At that point there's virtually no choice, it's just saving up resources and waiting to move along a completely linear tech path.
If we're going to keep the alien commander around we want it to actually be interesting and require some creativity, and getting rid of trait research completely just limits the kham even more.
I agree that the tech-tree is very limited, but how to fix it so no class gets left behind is the question imo. We know that allowing the khamm to research single traits it'll most likely result in cookie-cutter builds, unlocking single lifeforms after the traits got already researched with biomass is still very limited and not good aswell imo.
I like to complare the biomass evolution to getting to a new age in the Age of Empires series. Thats why I suggested to use the evolution chamber for small quality upgrades. There are so many possibilties, like increased res-generation by rt or more persistant parasites.. this for example can give some good ideas.
@elodea So looking at a previous statement which you ignored it was stated that drifter usefulness falls off as the skill level of the aliens declines
I ignored it because it was irrelevant and facetious. You understand the concept of balancing for equally skilled teams yes? Is it true for me to say medpacks are less useful the less skilled your marines are? yes. Is it at all a statement with any worth? no.
I personally really enjoyed 250's alien commanding, felt like it gave a lot of flexibility and it wasn't boring for me because there were options (including being a gorge comm). I don't like that they changed it again (I like the new stuff in 253, just not the changes to the alien commanding). I wish we could find a better reason to keep the alien commander in the chair other than look what you can do with the drifters...
? Then just go gorge? Drop your tres gorge egg if you want. Do a gorge swap if you want. There is now a tradeoff, that is all. You're kicking so much bruhaha over essentially a non-existent slight of mind. I highly doubt you have even ever done gorge alien comming, seeing as probabilistically 95%-100% of pub alien commanders don't.
So in that case just remove the alien comm ability to exit the hive.
Utterly ridiculous.
See above. Usually the UWE general forum is full of irrational rage and that's expected, but i have never seen it be this persistent in a long time. *I should add, it's either remove alien commander, allow tech explosions to continue their reign of terror, or this direction. The first is out of the question, the second is out of the question, which leaves us with the third. This forum can rail against this all it wants, but it must understand this is the only option atm that fits the scope. Provide solutions, not rage.
If you think that an outplayed alien team could win before by massing up with drifter support, then you are underestimating their opponent's tactical ability. Even as slower marines, you can make the most of out of position aliens. If you can only fight a war on one front, you leave your flanks open. Good teams exploit that. Even in div3.
lol. Yea, go right ahead, send your other marines to attack an empty side while all 5 aliens start enzyme killing your base from the other. Or just have them get demolished as well if the aliens are playng nice and don't want to base rush out of courtesy.
Honestly, i've said all i wanted to say. Drifter abilities are powerful, bordering on blatantly overpowered for anyone to see. I'm starting to think it's really not worth the time trying to convince the few who can't see that.
I am also one of the 5 percent. gorge mander if I go shift first. it seemed and felt more active.
@RioS
Well yea, thats because the healspray cone is pretty OP as well. I never tried to compare comm abilities to healspray, and imo it isn't an either/or situation here. If you would read above, I wrote that I thought 4 skulk + gorge pack was going to be pretty common now adays. Enzyme healspray is just lols.
I'm also pretty sure rupture and spike is more effective than a gorge at the t1 play you're in, since there is so much more emphasis on movement and aim. But again, I don't play div 1 so if that isn't the case, my bad.
I feel like @Elodea is talking to a wall in here ..
Have any of you actually tried used drifters in supporting combat situations of late?
You say they're slow but they are insanely fast now. You don't need your drifter to sit in the room, exposed and vulnerable. Just peek and cast.
Adding to the countering of the "their abilities are only good for skilled players" fallacy.. Its like those that are saying this haven't used anything other than enzymes??
Does more evasive speed help less skilled players? Yes.
Does on the fly healing help less skilled players? Yes.
Does creating multiple decoy hallucinations help less skilled players? Yes.
Oh yeah, and does allowing a less skilled player to chomp down a phase gate or marine before they are killed help less skilled players? Yup.
.. Seriously.. Its like you guys are arguing as if you are playing 250 still. Elodea is trying to tell you to go try these race cars that cheaply (not considering the cost of drifters, since it includes knowing how not to just leave them sitting around, motionless) influence combat more than you recall or have realized.
And i have to agree.. Go try them first in earnest. You might change your mind.
On that note my feedback is that the casting distance needs to be increased by a good 30% since not all rooms are created equal. (hello main hall)
really? enzyming 2 skulks to save your rt is better than getting out and having 3 skulks? popping some slow regen on them is better? 2 speed boost is better? the only thing that is even close to being good in a fight is hallucinations, and that has a hard counter. If the skulk is on the marine, the marine has practically lost already. enzyme doesn't help with that. storm sorta does, but any good skulk tells you that hitting reloads and being sneaking are way, way more important. which is why celerity is worse the better the marines are.
you talk as if people can't lane block properly and prevent drifters from getting places. you talk as if enzyme was some amazing thing for killing unguarded phasegates. Hint, they're unguarded. Its like you are pushing these abilities in situations which never apply.
You're like "elodea is talking to a wall". Meanwhile, many, many more competitive commanders are telling you and him that alien commander and its abilities aren't useful enough. no, the ones talking to a wall are us.
I didn't read the last three posts but I wanted to say something about drifters.
---
I don't use them because they are **** tedious to use.
You have to select the drifter, select the ability, select the are in which you want it to use, and then the drifter has to travel over there.
Compare this to a scan: Press e, press d, click.
That's not tedious at all. Keybind your individual drifter(s) to control groups and learn the ability keybinds. The only difference is that you're using a unit to cast the spell rather than a building. It's exactly the same number of keystrokes and mouse clicks for the ability itself.
Furthermore, this flies in the face of "alien commanding is boring and there's nothing to do." Drifter micro actually does take attention and skill. Isn't that what we want? An alien command game where the commander, like, plays a game?
I didn't read the last three posts but I wanted to say something about drifters.
---
I don't use them because they are **** tedious to use.
You have to select the drifter, select the ability, select the are in which you want it to use, and then the drifter has to travel over there.
Compare this to a scan: Press e, press d, click.
That's not tedious at all. Keybind your individual drifter(s) to control groups and learn the ability keybinds. The only difference is that you're using a unit to cast the spell rather than a building. It's exactly the same number of keystrokes and mouse clicks for the ability itself.
Furthermore, this flies in the face of "alien commanding is boring and there's nothing to do." Drifter micro actually does take attention and skill. Isn't that what we want? An alien command game where the commander, like, plays a game?
I can not speak for anyone but me, but I find movement clicks boring.
... uh, don't play RTS games then, I guess. That's, like, how micro works.
This isn't rts your making it a useless moba game by saying that playing with drifters is where the fun is. You simplify the upgrade track and then say no look drifters... It wasn't fun pre 252 and it not fun now. Period. Try listening to the people that actually play this game for the fun. If you don't then you loose them.
@RioS
I'm also pretty sure rupture and spike is more effective than a gorge at the t1 play you're in, since there is so much more emphasis on movement and aim. But again, I don't play div 1 so if that isn't the case, my bad.
Rupture is pretty useless but it's better that way.
The "new" (0 pres for comm/no res gain when out of the hive or cc) system is REALLY terrible and was already rejected by everyone during BT. Keeping the comm into the hive just for the sake of it is a terrible idea, especially when aliens were never designed for it (ns1 or 2). It is even WORSE with the new alien tech tree. WHAT.THE.FUCK. Even on paper I can tell it is utter shit. The khamm has nothing to do except clicking on what I could call an "all in" lifeform upgrade, since it cost so much (80res for bilebomb LOL). Don't give me "but they can use drifters now and be active!!" bullshit because if that's all you can do as a khamm that is interesting, it's fucking poor. I dont see the khammander gorging as a problem (and I hate hydras/clugs shit), it actually makes perfect sense for the comm to play a support lifeform.
Tres gorge isn't a solution, because it cost too much, won't get you any pres to drop hydras/gorge tunnel, and comes too late anyway. The alien tech tree cost simply too much for it, unless you want to cut upgrades, and you don't.
Letting another player comm at start so that the khamm can gorge is also not worth it enough, because of the fade nerf. The amout of deceleration on fade's bunny is just TOO DAMN HIGH, the structure damage from swipe is too damn low, and the 9 biomass required for fade's eggs is too damn retarded. You are gonna need the fade ball more than ever, but won't be able to have it, and if you do you'd better not lose a single fade.
its not really necessary to do that. once you decide "ok, lets upgrade fade first" you either have already a lot of fades in your team and want to support them, or you at least assume a lot of people will evolve into fade. it doesnt make sense in this situation to unlock only shadow step, and skip vortex or? you will go for vortex then as well, since that would help your team the most.
It actually does make perfect sense to upgrade shadow step first then skip vortex, because vortex is not necessarily (and I think I could just say never) what would help your team the most. I'd rather have tier 2 ability for all lifeforms than 1 with t2 and t3 and the others nothing. What doesn't make sense is to click 1 button for 35 tres and get nothing, until you reach the requested biomass level. Which also means, that if you want to get all upgrades for 1 lifeform (like you suggested you would want), you'd still need to upgrade all the biomass anyway, wich takes time and lot of tres, and you'd still get the abilities 1 by 1. So in essence, apart from the huge initial cost, doesn't change anything from b250 tech tree (again in the case that you would want all abilities for 1 lifeform).
Now if you want abilities for everyone (and that's what you want), even if those are low tiers, you are gonna need to spend SO MUCH TRES it's just not gonna happen in any normal match (comp or pub). But it's something you could do in b250, and it worked well.
Look at SC2 for example. Let's say you are zerg, and you rely heavily on zerglings early game. You will want the zergling mouvement speed upgrade (Metabolic Boost), wich you can get at t1, and is relatively cheap, but will still delay something else because you used gas for it, you commited a little. Does that mean that you are gonna tech to t3 fast and skip EVERYTHING just to get the zergling attack speed upgrade (Adrenal Glands), because well, you started upgrading zerglings? NO. It doesn't make sense. You need transition, something between the two, even if it's not about zerglings.
i see that you would like to go the cheapest route first (assuming here that indiv. abilities are cheaper to research than the grouped researches), by skipping things which are commonly known as "bad abilities", but this would just create newbie traps for unexperienced commanders, and it also makes the vital part of the tech tree incredible cheap. ideally there would be no such thing as bad abilities, but some abilities are simply stronger than others, thats unavoidable.
Giving khammander the choice between expensives upgrades that do nothing on their own is probably the worst newbie trap you could come up with. I can see newbies doing all lifeform upgrades before doing even 1 biomass. I cannot see where this could be better for newbies than b250 techtree, since you are commiting SO MUCH MORE ? In b250, even if they did the wrong upgrade, it costed less, and would actually have less negative impact on the "strategy" (since it cost less) and a positive (at worse neutral) impact on gameplay (you'd still get an ability from it) than those "all in upgrades" that cost more and have the potential to be literally useless.
Look at marine comm. Is going phase tech gonna deny going sgs or arms lab for the next 10 minutes? No, thank god.
I don't see the problem with abilities being more needed than others and having optimal build orders. Again, take SC2 as example. The "Hallucination" ability from the sentries is rarely used (or at least was rarely used last time I checked). Did Blizzard FORCED it with something else that is more common? No. It's still a side upgrade that has it's uses but is not as crucial as colossus range or zealot charge.
besides that, the biggest argument for grouped up life form researches is that there was too much clutter. we would end up in ~13 individual buttons you would need to click as commander, each of them has to be relatively cheap or otherwise the total cost of the tech tree would be too high, so there is no real choice anymore. spend 10 t.res to get bilebomb or leap or vortex? not really a choice, i would do that any day. 30 t.res to upgrade gorge or lerk or fade? thats more of a choice, it depends on either your teams strategy (if you have one) or in pub games on the current situation / life form compositions.
That argument does make sense, except that I really don't think it is big enough to justify destroying an alien tech tree that was working really well. If you wanted to add choices, not being able to do the whole tech tree because it cost too much seems to be a better solution already, it would actually force the khamm to make choices. It was a solution, not a problem. And even is that was a problem, there are probably better solution.
I am really unhappy with what you did to aliens. I can understand you wanted to change stuff, try avoiding the fade ball, but seriously WTF ????
I didn't read the last three posts but I wanted to say something about drifters.
---
I don't use them because they are **** tedious to use.
You have to select the drifter, select the ability, select the are in which you want it to use, and then the drifter has to travel over there.
Compare this to a scan: Press e, press d, click.
That's not tedious at all. Keybind your individual drifter(s) to control groups and learn the ability keybinds. The only difference is that you're using a unit to cast the spell rather than a building. It's exactly the same number of keystrokes and mouse clicks for the ability itself.
Furthermore, this flies in the face of "alien commanding is boring and there's nothing to do." Drifter micro actually does take attention and skill. Isn't that what we want? An alien command game where the commander, like, plays a game?
I can not speak for anyone but me, but I find movement clicks boring.
... uh, don't play RTS games then, I guess. That's, like, how micro works.
This isn't rts your making it a useless moba game by saying that playing with drifters is where the fun is. You simplify the upgrade track and then say no look drifters... It wasn't fun pre 252 and it not fun now. Period.
Well, I'll just have to agree to disagree with you, then. I like drifter micro a lot and I have commanded a lot of alien games this weekend (most of the PT team has been helping fill games on the PAX server for 8+ hours a day after already pulling 8-12 hours testing every day last week).
1) If there is one structure that governs alien upgrades (the "upgrade" structure, akin to the marine arms lab) you can bet that a popular marine strategy is going to be to run into the hive and kill it. Again and again. If it's the hive, it's likely not going to be an issue.
2) The fadeball is unavoidable. It's the corner you've painted yourself into by having players generate a set amount of PRes per tick. I think the only good adjustment that was made to counter it was to stop generating PRes when the alien player is dead, but I believe that's been reversed, so now all the players generate PRes at the same rate, guaranteeing a fadeball. (Please correct me if I'm wrong).
3) Making the alien commander have 0 PRes and a penalty counter before generating res seems to enforce a synchronous model (ie., one player on each team is a commander). Isn't this game about asynchronous tech models? The penalty is arbitrary and unfair and I think it should be removed.
The aliens now don't have any way to see what's happening around the map anymore. The drifters used to be cheap and they would cloak, but now I feel like they have developed into such a strange place in the game. Ultra expensive, fragile alien builders? Doesn't feel quite right... It was an odd choice to nerf the alien economy.
I didn't read the last three posts but I wanted to say something about drifters.
---
I don't use them because they are **** tedious to use.
You have to select the drifter, select the ability, select the are in which you want it to use, and then the drifter has to travel over there.
Compare this to a scan: Press e, press d, click.
That's not tedious at all. Keybind your individual drifter(s) to control groups and learn the ability keybinds. The only difference is that you're using a unit to cast the spell rather than a building. It's exactly the same number of keystrokes and mouse clicks for the ability itself.
Furthermore, this flies in the face of "alien commanding is boring and there's nothing to do." Drifter micro actually does take attention and skill. Isn't that what we want? An alien command game where the commander, like, plays a game?
I can not speak for anyone but me, but I find movement clicks boring.
... uh, don't play RTS games then, I guess. That's, like, how micro works.
This isn't rts your making it a useless moba game by saying that playing with drifters is where the fun is. You simplify the upgrade track and then say no look drifters... It wasn't fun pre 252 and it not fun now. Period.
Well, I'll just have to agree to disagree with you, then. I like drifter micro a lot and I have commanded a lot of alien games this weekend (most of the PT team has been helping fill games on the PAX server for 8+ hours a day after already pulling 8-12 hours testing every day last week).
Congrats on being super dedicated could you tell me again how many hours you volunteered to ns2, because I think it really has something to do with every issue with the game in this current build. Seeing as you bring it up whenever you have the chance.
The only people I've seen actually like the new alien commanding were people who are playtesters and essentially work for UWE for free. How about we look at how other people feel about the game.
I didn't read the last three posts but I wanted to say something about drifters.
---
I don't use them because they are **** tedious to use.
You have to select the drifter, select the ability, select the are in which you want it to use, and then the drifter has to travel over there.
Compare this to a scan: Press e, press d, click.
That's not tedious at all. Keybind your individual drifter(s) to control groups and learn the ability keybinds. The only difference is that you're using a unit to cast the spell rather than a building. It's exactly the same number of keystrokes and mouse clicks for the ability itself.
Furthermore, this flies in the face of "alien commanding is boring and there's nothing to do." Drifter micro actually does take attention and skill. Isn't that what we want? An alien command game where the commander, like, plays a game?
I can not speak for anyone but me, but I find movement clicks boring.
... uh, don't play RTS games then, I guess. That's, like, how micro works.
This isn't rts your making it a useless moba game by saying that playing with drifters is where the fun is. You simplify the upgrade track and then say no look drifters... It wasn't fun pre 252 and it not fun now. Period.
Well, I'll just have to agree to disagree with you, then. I like drifter micro a lot and I have commanded a lot of alien games this weekend (most of the PT team has been helping fill games on the PAX server for 8+ hours a day after already pulling 8-12 hours testing every day last week).
so then why the changes? why 8 res drifters? now drifter micro is absolutely non-viable early game. you need the one you can afford to go build your RTs. you can't use it to increase the chance of winning an engagement because then you'd need 2, and 16 tres at the beginning of the game is prohibitively expensive. God forbid it dies too, then you'd need another and that'd be 24 res.
both the main changes to alien early game just make it more annoying to command because there's even less to do. You can't go gorge up a node. You can't use drifters. You can't do anything except run around as skulk while waiting for research to tick away and RTs to build. The exact opposite is happening of what everyone stated the changes were for.
The aliens now don't have any way to see what's happening around the map anymore. The drifters used to be cheap and they would cloak, but now I feel like they have developed into such a strange place in the game. Ultra expensive, fragile alien builders? Doesn't feel quite right... It was an odd choice to nerf the alien economy.
And that was totally overpowered. Map awareness at basically no cost. Why will the skulk even parasite stuff? Drifters did it better...
Drifters abilities were always powerful, hence the loss of the stacking of those abilities. I always played with drifters. Now taht drifters are more expensive you actually have to look out for them, which is good. To all of those saying that drifter micro is boring, try to only spawn 1 drifter during the game and not lose it. Having a drifter constantly following a gorge around, enzyming when he is building, storming when retreating and generally helping him out and his skulks buddies is interesting enough to keep me occupied during a round. Btw, a stormed charging onos is scary fast .
In all honesty, i despise the beginning when that drifter is busy building RTs, and you do not have enough res for abilities. Maybe remove drifters their building ability and make structures auto build a bit faster? I would like to see more drifter usage in the early game, and it is not reasonable to do so at the moment.
In all honesty, i despise the beginning when that drifter is busy building RTs, and you do not have enough res for abilities. Maybe remove drifters their building ability and make structures auto build a bit faster? I would like to see more drifter usage in the early game, and it is not reasonable to do so at the moment.
Wouldn't it be awesome if a comm could jump out and do something useful in the meantime? Oh wait... :P
For the record, I'm sceptical about the zero res start rule. I'm not even convinced it is necessary to counter the fade ball anymore, now that Lerks have become more interesting and Fades somewhat nerfed. This alone should have much more of an impact that the commander's starting pres.
But the "no pres gain" rule after leaving the hive should really be removed. It penalizes creative play, and I'd rather see that encouraged instead.
I have no opinion about the no-pres-while-com thing. It feels restricting but when I command I'm a perma-com anyway. I used drifters ALOT before the reinforcement upgrade and agree, that they are damn powerful. More influencing than I could be when going halftime-gorge.
Scouting, 4x buffing, drawing damage make them better as any gorge could be. Even without clogs / hydras. Also, they aren't difficult to micro anymore. This times are long gone. Group them with Strg+Number and it gets way easier.
You can even initiate pushes with hallucinations:
Cast it on a group of waiting / healing aliens;
double-click one hallucination;
send them to marines;
real aliens will automatically follow;
marines will shoot their bullets at hallus and then they will die to the real aliens following.
But the increased cost of them has made them non viable besides building RTs. At least in the early game. I see how you try to fix the fade ball with it. But I don't think it is worth the goal.
Pro:
* less fade balls
* more gorges
* needed alien nerf
Con:
* restricts the com in his freedom
* costly drifters decreases interesting / fun things to do for the com (Together with the new tech tree, there is really little to do / decide.)
* creates the need for gorges just that they can stare at buildings and hold mouse 2 (We already have a team that we can chose if we want to do that.)
The pros are important things. But there must be other ways than to force them. You force gorges to build structures (a boring task). You force the com to stick to the hive / com-station. Together with the changed tech tree (no decisions) the alien com is way less fun for me than before reinforced.
Movement for movements sake is boring. Movement to execute grand strategies or tactics are fine.
Right now drifter dodging is keeping you from doing anything else.
0:00 Upgrade shift hive, build shift & drifter next to harvester in 1st hive, cyst to the 4 closest resource points, build 2nd drifter in 2nd hive location
0:00-2:00 Echo harvesters to 5 total and use the 2nd drifter to keep building as fast as possible
3:05 Start 2nd hive, now have a drifter in each hive, don't move them for awhile
3:20 Build shade or crag next to shift to echo to 2nd hive location
3:40-5:00 Build spurs
6:05 Upgrade 2nd hive to crag
Get 3 shells
Upgrade bio mass and gorges
It might be only 2 or 3 harvesters against better teams but this has been working well otherwise
I can see why the alien khamm has been nerfed as going early gorge for support or lerk to help out was not intended. That being said I found myself doing the same thing as marine Comm when nobody was near a base or pg. Heck in pubs it wasn't uncommon for me to have the highest kills in the team by jumping out of the chair and phasing to areas under attack.
Beacon for 1 skulk would be the crime here.
Now one might argue you could better relay information or support people but the fact of the matter being that in pubs people simply don't listen too well. Sometimes getting out and doing it yourself is the best course of action and I really miss that option now. I find the game more shallow as a comm because of it. You already get so few pres as a comm in general, is that one shotgun, gorge or lerk really so bad? And punishing people for getting in the chair because the original comm is out of the chair is pretty stupid. Punishing players for dropping ips when the old base has died for example makes absolutely zero sense.
Khamm is pretty boring in general, drifter micro is nice and all but that doesn't help me protect an area if nobody is around to assist.
I khamm a fair amount of games only because fed up with rookie khamms or because nobody wants the job. I really don't find khamming as entertaining as being out on the field. Marine comm is in a pretty good spot overall but the khamm is lacking.
The new infest ability allowing you to tp whips in is godsend though and finally allows a good khamm to end a game.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
I wouldn't mind it if khamming drifted further towards chamber management. Now that they can move, give the primary chambers the ability to patrol & follow - turn them into actual units. It'd allow for some interesting strategies.
e.g. a gorge leading a shift & a mature whip pack.
Comments
I agree that the tech-tree is very limited, but how to fix it so no class gets left behind is the question imo. We know that allowing the khamm to research single traits it'll most likely result in cookie-cutter builds, unlocking single lifeforms after the traits got already researched with biomass is still very limited and not good aswell imo.
I like to complare the biomass evolution to getting to a new age in the Age of Empires series. Thats why I suggested to use the evolution chamber for small quality upgrades. There are so many possibilties, like increased res-generation by rt or more persistant parasites.. this for example can give some good ideas.
I am also one of the 5 percent. gorge mander if I go shift first. it seemed and felt more active.
Well yea, thats because the healspray cone is pretty OP as well. I never tried to compare comm abilities to healspray, and imo it isn't an either/or situation here. If you would read above, I wrote that I thought 4 skulk + gorge pack was going to be pretty common now adays. Enzyme healspray is just lols.
I'm also pretty sure rupture and spike is more effective than a gorge at the t1 play you're in, since there is so much more emphasis on movement and aim. But again, I don't play div 1 so if that isn't the case, my bad.
really? enzyming 2 skulks to save your rt is better than getting out and having 3 skulks? popping some slow regen on them is better? 2 speed boost is better? the only thing that is even close to being good in a fight is hallucinations, and that has a hard counter. If the skulk is on the marine, the marine has practically lost already. enzyme doesn't help with that. storm sorta does, but any good skulk tells you that hitting reloads and being sneaking are way, way more important. which is why celerity is worse the better the marines are.
you talk as if people can't lane block properly and prevent drifters from getting places. you talk as if enzyme was some amazing thing for killing unguarded phasegates. Hint, they're unguarded. Its like you are pushing these abilities in situations which never apply.
You're like "elodea is talking to a wall". Meanwhile, many, many more competitive commanders are telling you and him that alien commander and its abilities aren't useful enough. no, the ones talking to a wall are us.
That's not tedious at all. Keybind your individual drifter(s) to control groups and learn the ability keybinds. The only difference is that you're using a unit to cast the spell rather than a building. It's exactly the same number of keystrokes and mouse clicks for the ability itself.
Furthermore, this flies in the face of "alien commanding is boring and there's nothing to do." Drifter micro actually does take attention and skill. Isn't that what we want? An alien command game where the commander, like, plays a game?
... uh, don't play RTS games then, I guess. That's, like, how micro works.
This isn't rts your making it a useless moba game by saying that playing with drifters is where the fun is. You simplify the upgrade track and then say no look drifters... It wasn't fun pre 252 and it not fun now. Period. Try listening to the people that actually play this game for the fun. If you don't then you loose them.
Rupture is pretty useless but it's better that way.
The "new" (0 pres for comm/no res gain when out of the hive or cc) system is REALLY terrible and was already rejected by everyone during BT. Keeping the comm into the hive just for the sake of it is a terrible idea, especially when aliens were never designed for it (ns1 or 2). It is even WORSE with the new alien tech tree. WHAT.THE.FUCK. Even on paper I can tell it is utter shit. The khamm has nothing to do except clicking on what I could call an "all in" lifeform upgrade, since it cost so much (80res for bilebomb LOL). Don't give me "but they can use drifters now and be active!!" bullshit because if that's all you can do as a khamm that is interesting, it's fucking poor. I dont see the khammander gorging as a problem (and I hate hydras/clugs shit), it actually makes perfect sense for the comm to play a support lifeform.
Tres gorge isn't a solution, because it cost too much, won't get you any pres to drop hydras/gorge tunnel, and comes too late anyway. The alien tech tree cost simply too much for it, unless you want to cut upgrades, and you don't.
Letting another player comm at start so that the khamm can gorge is also not worth it enough, because of the fade nerf. The amout of deceleration on fade's bunny is just TOO DAMN HIGH, the structure damage from swipe is too damn low, and the 9 biomass required for fade's eggs is too damn retarded. You are gonna need the fade ball more than ever, but won't be able to have it, and if you do you'd better not lose a single fade.
It actually does make perfect sense to upgrade shadow step first then skip vortex, because vortex is not necessarily (and I think I could just say never) what would help your team the most. I'd rather have tier 2 ability for all lifeforms than 1 with t2 and t3 and the others nothing. What doesn't make sense is to click 1 button for 35 tres and get nothing, until you reach the requested biomass level. Which also means, that if you want to get all upgrades for 1 lifeform (like you suggested you would want), you'd still need to upgrade all the biomass anyway, wich takes time and lot of tres, and you'd still get the abilities 1 by 1. So in essence, apart from the huge initial cost, doesn't change anything from b250 tech tree (again in the case that you would want all abilities for 1 lifeform).
Now if you want abilities for everyone (and that's what you want), even if those are low tiers, you are gonna need to spend SO MUCH TRES it's just not gonna happen in any normal match (comp or pub). But it's something you could do in b250, and it worked well.
Look at SC2 for example. Let's say you are zerg, and you rely heavily on zerglings early game. You will want the zergling mouvement speed upgrade (Metabolic Boost), wich you can get at t1, and is relatively cheap, but will still delay something else because you used gas for it, you commited a little. Does that mean that you are gonna tech to t3 fast and skip EVERYTHING just to get the zergling attack speed upgrade (Adrenal Glands), because well, you started upgrading zerglings? NO. It doesn't make sense. You need transition, something between the two, even if it's not about zerglings.
Giving khammander the choice between expensives upgrades that do nothing on their own is probably the worst newbie trap you could come up with. I can see newbies doing all lifeform upgrades before doing even 1 biomass. I cannot see where this could be better for newbies than b250 techtree, since you are commiting SO MUCH MORE ? In b250, even if they did the wrong upgrade, it costed less, and would actually have less negative impact on the "strategy" (since it cost less) and a positive (at worse neutral) impact on gameplay (you'd still get an ability from it) than those "all in upgrades" that cost more and have the potential to be literally useless.
Look at marine comm. Is going phase tech gonna deny going sgs or arms lab for the next 10 minutes? No, thank god.
I don't see the problem with abilities being more needed than others and having optimal build orders. Again, take SC2 as example. The "Hallucination" ability from the sentries is rarely used (or at least was rarely used last time I checked). Did Blizzard FORCED it with something else that is more common? No. It's still a side upgrade that has it's uses but is not as crucial as colossus range or zealot charge.
That argument does make sense, except that I really don't think it is big enough to justify destroying an alien tech tree that was working really well. If you wanted to add choices, not being able to do the whole tech tree because it cost too much seems to be a better solution already, it would actually force the khamm to make choices. It was a solution, not a problem. And even is that was a problem, there are probably better solution.
I am really unhappy with what you did to aliens. I can understand you wanted to change stuff, try avoiding the fade ball, but seriously WTF ????
Well, I'll just have to agree to disagree with you, then. I like drifter micro a lot and I have commanded a lot of alien games this weekend (most of the PT team has been helping fill games on the PAX server for 8+ hours a day after already pulling 8-12 hours testing every day last week).
1) If there is one structure that governs alien upgrades (the "upgrade" structure, akin to the marine arms lab) you can bet that a popular marine strategy is going to be to run into the hive and kill it. Again and again. If it's the hive, it's likely not going to be an issue.
2) The fadeball is unavoidable. It's the corner you've painted yourself into by having players generate a set amount of PRes per tick. I think the only good adjustment that was made to counter it was to stop generating PRes when the alien player is dead, but I believe that's been reversed, so now all the players generate PRes at the same rate, guaranteeing a fadeball. (Please correct me if I'm wrong).
3) Making the alien commander have 0 PRes and a penalty counter before generating res seems to enforce a synchronous model (ie., one player on each team is a commander). Isn't this game about asynchronous tech models? The penalty is arbitrary and unfair and I think it should be removed.
C.
Congrats on being super dedicated could you tell me again how many hours you volunteered to ns2, because I think it really has something to do with every issue with the game in this current build. Seeing as you bring it up whenever you have the chance.
The only people I've seen actually like the new alien commanding were people who are playtesters and essentially work for UWE for free. How about we look at how other people feel about the game.
so then why the changes? why 8 res drifters? now drifter micro is absolutely non-viable early game. you need the one you can afford to go build your RTs. you can't use it to increase the chance of winning an engagement because then you'd need 2, and 16 tres at the beginning of the game is prohibitively expensive. God forbid it dies too, then you'd need another and that'd be 24 res.
both the main changes to alien early game just make it more annoying to command because there's even less to do. You can't go gorge up a node. You can't use drifters. You can't do anything except run around as skulk while waiting for research to tick away and RTs to build. The exact opposite is happening of what everyone stated the changes were for.
NOTHING changed for the better. drifters got worse. tech got dumbed down. early game became a boring waiting game.
Drifters abilities were always powerful, hence the loss of the stacking of those abilities. I always played with drifters. Now taht drifters are more expensive you actually have to look out for them, which is good. To all of those saying that drifter micro is boring, try to only spawn 1 drifter during the game and not lose it. Having a drifter constantly following a gorge around, enzyming when he is building, storming when retreating and generally helping him out and his skulks buddies is interesting enough to keep me occupied during a round. Btw, a stormed charging onos is scary fast
In all honesty, i despise the beginning when that drifter is busy building RTs, and you do not have enough res for abilities. Maybe remove drifters their building ability and make structures auto build a bit faster? I would like to see more drifter usage in the early game, and it is not reasonable to do so at the moment.
Wouldn't it be awesome if a comm could jump out and do something useful in the meantime? Oh wait... :P
For the record, I'm sceptical about the zero res start rule. I'm not even convinced it is necessary to counter the fade ball anymore, now that Lerks have become more interesting and Fades somewhat nerfed. This alone should have much more of an impact that the commander's starting pres.
But the "no pres gain" rule after leaving the hive should really be removed. It penalizes creative play, and I'd rather see that encouraged instead.
Scouting, 4x buffing, drawing damage make them better as any gorge could be. Even without clogs / hydras. Also, they aren't difficult to micro anymore. This times are long gone. Group them with Strg+Number and it gets way easier.
Cast it on a group of waiting / healing aliens;
double-click one hallucination;
send them to marines;
real aliens will automatically follow;
marines will shoot their bullets at hallus and then they will die to the real aliens following.
But the increased cost of them has made them non viable besides building RTs. At least in the early game. I see how you try to fix the fade ball with it. But I don't think it is worth the goal.
Pro:
* less fade balls
* more gorges
* needed alien nerf
Con:
* restricts the com in his freedom
* costly drifters decreases interesting / fun things to do for the com (Together with the new tech tree, there is really little to do / decide.)
* creates the need for gorges just that they can stare at buildings and hold mouse 2 (We already have a team that we can chose if we want to do that.)
The pros are important things. But there must be other ways than to force them. You force gorges to build structures (a boring task). You force the com to stick to the hive / com-station. Together with the changed tech tree (no decisions) the alien com is way less fun for me than before reinforced.
Just my 2 cents.
Let me be more specific then.
Movement for movements sake is boring. Movement to execute grand strategies or tactics are fine.
Right now drifter dodging is keeping you from doing anything else.
0:00 Upgrade shift hive, build shift & drifter next to harvester in 1st hive, cyst to the 4 closest resource points, build 2nd drifter in 2nd hive location
0:00-2:00 Echo harvesters to 5 total and use the 2nd drifter to keep building as fast as possible
3:05 Start 2nd hive, now have a drifter in each hive, don't move them for awhile
3:20 Build shade or crag next to shift to echo to 2nd hive location
3:40-5:00 Build spurs
6:05 Upgrade 2nd hive to crag
Get 3 shells
Upgrade bio mass and gorges
It might be only 2 or 3 harvesters against better teams but this has been working well otherwise
Beacon for 1 skulk would be the crime here.
Now one might argue you could better relay information or support people but the fact of the matter being that in pubs people simply don't listen too well. Sometimes getting out and doing it yourself is the best course of action and I really miss that option now. I find the game more shallow as a comm because of it. You already get so few pres as a comm in general, is that one shotgun, gorge or lerk really so bad? And punishing people for getting in the chair because the original comm is out of the chair is pretty stupid. Punishing players for dropping ips when the old base has died for example makes absolutely zero sense.
Khamm is pretty boring in general, drifter micro is nice and all but that doesn't help me protect an area if nobody is around to assist.
I khamm a fair amount of games only because fed up with rookie khamms or because nobody wants the job. I really don't find khamming as entertaining as being out on the field. Marine comm is in a pretty good spot overall but the khamm is lacking.
The new infest ability allowing you to tp whips in is godsend though and finally allows a good khamm to end a game.
e.g. a gorge leading a shift & a mature whip pack.