i added a new bio mass UI today to the mod, would be curious about your feedback.
[...]
- The alertbutton and the button to see the research tree dont really fit in the position they're in. I can see the you want to keep the expericence similar to the comm, but they look out of place to me. How about: You can see the techtree by clicking on the new top-left biomass symbol instead? This whould be somewhat in line with how lifeforms see their upgrades.
[...]
I would like to add, that I would really like to be able to trigger a sound with the alertbutton(like the "Swarmcluster is under attack" from Starcarft) because right now, nearly no player follows the "Order" it is just too easy to overlook or ignore...
Maybe I'm missing it, but what's the point of tumor exactly?
It's a Skulk PRes sink that helps defend against early game marine aggression (carrying grenades, shotguns and mined up base), especially in 18+ player games.
I don't think Skulk "mines" count as "PvE", as they require effort from individual Skulk for placement. It fills up a missing gap in the alien arsenal nicely (early game AOE defense).
I haven't seen what tumour does (though I'm interested to know), but in terms of a viable upgrade that assists skulks late game I think something that addresses the impossibility of killing jetpackers.
2 examples I can think of:
- A skulk spit that reduces the flight energy or something. Not a hard counter as you still want the power the jetpackers provide, but something that makes it at least possible for a skulk (or another lifeform) to have an impact on jetpackers. Or;
- A gorge or lerk gas projectile that sucks the energy out of jetpackers in an area (again reducing flight time). This would mean that skulks would have a chance, but only with a higher level lifeform nearby.
I do agree with the idea of giving the skulk a new ability, but tumor is weird. Something like 'burrow' from Starcraft would be much cooler.
That being said, not sure how it could be differentiated from phantom. Maybe have a bit of bone armor sticking out for observant marines to see? Scanning reveals skulk? Maybe?
How about, it could only be used on infestation, and slowly drains energy while in use.
I like this. Some kind of mini-boneshield. Disintegrate into the infestation. It will cost energy, but marines will not want to come close. The skulk could pop out of the infestation at anytime. Area Denial for Skulk.
Sounds to me more like something that promotes passive gameplay. You hide behind some corner and hope that marines will come by at a later point. Needless to say that the ability also largely overlaps with phantom
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited September 2013
BT - aliens lose their abilities when losing hive or evolution chamber
Please revert this change. It brings nothing but frustration for the aliens.
It would be much better to disable aliens' ability to evolve into Lerk, Fade and Onos and khammander lifeform drops than crucial alien abilities. "Why can't I evolve to Fade?" is a lot frustrating than "WTF Vortex/Shadowstep/Bone Shield stopped working?". If Jetpacks suddenly stopped working or if Exos lost a gun, there would be outrage.
@Reubot A/W is equivalent to cara/celerity/aura, which are lost when shell/spur/viel are killed... Losing bile/leap/... is like watching your GL/flame/Exo/JP go poof when AA/proto die...
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
One of the greatest things about early game skulk is its simplicity. It's a great example of less being more in any sort of interactive design. I would rather have 2 (hive 2, hive 3) great abilities that adds depth to the class by allowing adjustments in how it is played. New abilities don't need to forcibly stuffed in that add little to the overall experience, potential play styles or skill ceiling of the class. And I don't think there's any ability for the skulk that could honestly achieve that that wouldn't be better achieved by adjusting leap or making xenocide boss.
For me, the fade is the biggest offender. It has 3 movement abilities. 1 of them is a teleport thing of questionable combat utility. Shadow step on the other hand I feel is completely superfluous and exists solely to allow the fade to move during the stab wind up. The exact same effect could be implemented into blink with a higher initial blink momentum boost and allowing movement during the stab wind up with blink.
@Reubot A/W is equivalent to cara/celerity/aura, which are lost when shell/spur/viel are killed... Losing bile/leap/... is like watching your GL/flame/Exo/JP go poof when AA/proto die...
How so? It's not like aliens are spending any p-res for those upgrades? I rather see lifeforms themselves as marine weapon/exo equivalents. Anyway I guess there's really no point in arguing over this...
It's a Skulk PRes sink that helps defend against early game marine aggression (carrying grenades, shotguns and mined up base), especially in 18+ player games.
I don't think Skulk "mines" count as "PvE", as they require effort from individual Skulk for placement. It fills up a missing gap in the alien arsenal nicely (early game AOE defense).
1. You can have other abilities that work as a p-res sink
2. do aliens have a problem defending at all? especially skulks.
3. early game aoe defense, aka hydras.
My questions is more on the side of, why do we need to keep making mines and traps for people to step into? these things are usually annoying to play against, and generally not a whole lot of fun to play as. I wouldnt mind it if there was a good reason for it, but imo your reasons arent convincing.
- removed light and heavy damage
- removed flame damage type
Uhhhhh... what? I get how heavy damage could be changed to normal without a big deal, but the light damage on the pistol is only balanced if the damage is light or it gets nerfed damage wise.
Flame well, it would be nice to see Cysts not die to the lightest touch of a Flamethrower.
- removed light and heavy damage
- removed flame damage type
You mean that Exo Miniguns wont shred all alien lifeforms in <2 sec! woo!
(I can finally get rid of my signature! its been there since Exos were first released in beta!)
But now I wont be able to strafe dodge and weld hydras down faster than I could kill them with my LMG
edit: also, Mines being normal damage will be AMAZING and actually worth the cost if damage isn't nerfed
@Reubot A/W is equivalent to cara/celerity/aura, which are lost when shell/spur/viel are killed... Losing bile/leap/... is like watching your GL/flame/Exo/JP go poof when AA/proto die...
How so? It's not like aliens are spending any p-res for those upgrades? I rather see lifeforms themselves as marine weapon/exo equivalents. Anyway I guess there's really no point in arguing over this...
I'd like to point out that aliens will be punished far heavier than marines, if they lose combat abilities from the loss of Hive or Evo chamber. The only possible loss in combat power Marines suffer is from the loss of Arms Labs, and that does not alter fundamental game-play elements of movement and offensive/defensive abilities.
Even though aliens do not pay PRes for their abilities, they already pay premiums (that cannot be reclaimed like most marine weapons) on their expensive lifeforms, and risk losing their paid upgrades (such as carapace) when they lose structures (such as Shells). Any additional punishment on aliens for losing structures would not be fair.
Most importantly, losing "control" of acquired abilities (such as Leap) causes great frustration for alien players.
One of the greatest things about early game skulk is its simplicity. It's a great example of less being more in any sort of interactive design. I would rather have 2 (hive 2, hive 3) great abilities that adds depth to the class by allowing adjustments in how it is played. New abilities don't need to forcibly stuffed in that add little to the overall experience, potential play styles or skill ceiling of the class. And I don't think there's any ability for the skulk that could honestly achieve that that wouldn't be better achieved by adjusting leap or making xenocide boss.
For me, the fade is the biggest offender. It has 3 movement abilities. 1 of them is a teleport thing of questionable combat utility. Shadow step on the other hand I feel is completely superfluous and exists solely to allow the fade to move during the stab wind up. The exact same effect could be implemented into blink with a higher initial blink momentum boost and allowing movement during the stab wind up with blink.
While its optimistic to expect deep and robust choices/tactics/playstyles from simple design, its often very rarely the case. Giving players lots of tools to reach a goal will often result in more complexity, but will also allow players to get much more creative in general. More creativity = more rewarding choices = funner gameply.
I can see the case for shadowstep (as it is more or less a gimped version of blink), but vortex is awesome. I look forward to seeing better players explore the ability more.
I'd like to see skulks start out with leap. I mean the way their body is composed, they are built to leap. Do a minor amount of dmg (way less than bite, more than para) and increase it's energy cost. I think this could help alleviate bunny hopping marines.
Move xeno to tier 2 ability. Make skulks somewhat viable against JP'ers. I would increase the time it takes to detonate by a little bit, and make the effect of an incoming exploding skulk more apparent. (visual and/or sound). Decreasing dmg a little bit or AoE range could also be explored.
Move the primal scream ability of lerks to tier 3 ability for skulks. I think a lerk has way too many tools at the moment. Ranged attack, fast bite, AoE dmg, and reduced damage buff. Giving this to skulks makes skulks viable end game. I could see how no pres cost on the skulk could make this OP, but as long as it isn't stackable and skulks don't gain anymor defensive viability than they currently do endgame, I think it could work. Perhaps it increases dmg by increments of X when Y amount of players are in Z range?
I like the idea behind removing heavy and light damage (it's not really very interesting mechanically) but isn't it going to require a messy rebalancing of damage and armour values to compensate for it?
I'm still a bit undecided on the pitch black rooms. Overall it looks nice in most rooms, especially with the cysts/structures giving off light. It's very atmospheric. But it also seems like a big nerf to marines in general as it obviously makes spotting and tracking aliens much harder. Maybe you could try some compromise? For instance, keeping the cyst glow, increasing the pitch black phase after power is destroyed, but just toning down the red lights a bit instead of completely removing it?
I don't particularly like the changes to the alien tech tree and drifter abilities in this mod. It felt like you used to have much more choices and variety in playstyle as khammander in the older builds. You could chose how to play your commander role to begin with (to gorgecomm or not to gorgecomm), now with the pres penalty it's become much more restrictive. You used to be able to research whatever ability you wanted, it was then clustered, and now it's just automatic. And drifters are suffering from an identity crisis now they no longer have their support abilities. I think they were in a reasonably good spot and didn't need any big changes.
I like the idea behind removing heavy and light damage (it's not really very interesting mechanically) but isn't it going to require a messy rebalancing of damage and armour values to compensate for it?
Maybe this is also in a bid to get rid of "hidden numbers."
I think it could reduce the complexity of the weapons system a lot if all attacks always did the amount of damage listed. Though there will be a pretty big overhaul of values as you say.
Also I think it could lead to easier tweaking in the future.
I really want to see the perma darkness on power loss implemented. It would be interesting to see it almost a reverse from the current mechanic, so when power is cut it drops to auxiliary power and then as soon as the power node is able to be welded again it goes completely dark.
I like the idea behind removing heavy and light damage (it's not really very interesting mechanically) but isn't it going to require a messy rebalancing of damage and armour values to compensate for it?
Maybe this is also in a bid to get rid of "hidden numbers."
I think it could reduce the complexity of the weapons system a lot if all attacks always did the amount of damage listed. Though there will be a pretty big overhaul of values as you say.
Also I think it could lead to easier tweaking in the future.
the main reason why i did this was that the weapons types (and the weapons which used them) didn't achieve the exact gameplay effect intended for them. for example, initially the onos had tons of armor, making the minigun the right weapon choice against it. unfortunately, this meant that the rifle or shotgun were pretty poor against an onos (the shotgun was even at light damage at one point, which was really pathetic against an onos). we had to tweak the onos, now its on relatively low armor, which means all weapons are "ok" against it (and of course dual minigun melts them away with heavy damage, but any other life form as well).
without having extremes, the damage type wont work, and on the contrary there should not be hard counters in the game either. which led us to the current situation, where light and heavy damage are quite meaningless to gameplay and just add another layer of complexity (hidden) for a player to learn.
or for the pistol: we decided to put it on light damage, because we wanted it to be a weapon to finish off aliens. during recent patches, the pistol reload animation time got increased, but the draw animation lowered. this already makes this weapon good to be a "finisher" weapon, since you want to have at first the rifle ready (longer draw animation) and then quickly switch to pistol for additional damage when you are either out of ammo or for more accuracy to snipe a retreating alien.
there are more examples, but it all breaks down to those damage types not being meaningful enough to justify the existance of those types
- new bio mass UI, gradually fills depending on hives health or research / build progress
Nice addition, I really like that only lifeform specific abilities appear for the player (even Khamm has his unique Biomass unlocks on UI now)
- aliens health is now gradually affected by bio mass (50% bonus for half build hive or research, means also aliens lose partially max health when a hive is under attack)
Interesting change. I like that Marines can hit Hives to weaken all alien players (so to speak), which gives another huge incentive to actively protect Hives. However, it also means total health for each lifeform is constantly changing throughout the course of the game, which could lead to "I shot him x times and he still didn't die!" situations, if the shooter was really counting damage.
- life form upgrades are now automatically unlocked at their respective bio mass level
Going back to NS1 roots I see , no complaints here.
@Sewlek I think it's a good idea if you don't want hard counters in the game. And it should lead to easier adjustment of all the marine weapons vs onos (and others). It seems like a good idea for marine weapons at least.
I didn't see it mentioned so I assume this means not all damage types are being considered for removal, only the ones you mentioned (light, heavy, and flame).
I was just thinking puncture might be harder to drop. If Lerk spikes went from puncture to normal it will not do as much damage to marines, but if the dmg number is bumped up to compensate it would do too much to structures. And fades would no longer have a swipe penalty against structures either if left as effective -(side note, I thought the last few patches went a bit to far on the fade nerf when it dropped his structure damage so much).
I really want to see the perma darkness on power loss implemented. It would be interesting to see it almost a reverse from the current mechanic, so when power is cut it drops to auxiliary power and then as soon as the power node is able to be welded again it goes completely dark.
I like the mechanic itself, but it is far from being ready for prime time in the vanilla game. Some rooms like like crap in continously full darkness (biodome is worst offender), infestation isn't lit, and many textures are fullbright. Emergency lighting should still be incorporated in some form (power surge, sentry batteries, etc), and it looks like Halloween overload with only orange for the fauna color. Posted a thread with more detailed feedback on possible improvements: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/131949/rework-the-power-node-system-lighting#latest
Also, Sewlek, can you make the 'fps' console command persistent until map change, or even client closure? Small annoying thing ever since it was added :P
Comments
Maybe I'm missing it, but what's the point of tumor exactly?
It's a Skulk PRes sink that helps defend against early game marine aggression (carrying grenades, shotguns and mined up base), especially in 18+ player games.
I don't think Skulk "mines" count as "PvE", as they require effort from individual Skulk for placement. It fills up a missing gap in the alien arsenal nicely (early game AOE defense).
2 examples I can think of:
- A skulk spit that reduces the flight energy or something. Not a hard counter as you still want the power the jetpackers provide, but something that makes it at least possible for a skulk (or another lifeform) to have an impact on jetpackers. Or;
- A gorge or lerk gas projectile that sucks the energy out of jetpackers in an area (again reducing flight time). This would mean that skulks would have a chance, but only with a higher level lifeform nearby.
I like this. Some kind of mini-boneshield. Disintegrate into the infestation. It will cost energy, but marines will not want to come close. The skulk could pop out of the infestation at anytime. Area Denial for Skulk.
It would be much better to disable aliens' ability to evolve into Lerk, Fade and Onos and khammander lifeform drops than crucial alien abilities. "Why can't I evolve to Fade?" is a lot frustrating than "WTF Vortex/Shadowstep/Bone Shield stopped working?". If Jetpacks suddenly stopped working or if Exos lost a gun, there would be outrage.
@Reubot A/W is equivalent to cara/celerity/aura, which are lost when shell/spur/viel are killed... Losing bile/leap/... is like watching your GL/flame/Exo/JP go poof when AA/proto die...
Long live the bile bomb base trade!!
For me, the fade is the biggest offender. It has 3 movement abilities. 1 of them is a teleport thing of questionable combat utility. Shadow step on the other hand I feel is completely superfluous and exists solely to allow the fade to move during the stab wind up. The exact same effect could be implemented into blink with a higher initial blink momentum boost and allowing movement during the stab wind up with blink.
How so? It's not like aliens are spending any p-res for those upgrades? I rather see lifeforms themselves as marine weapon/exo equivalents. Anyway I guess there's really no point in arguing over this...
1. You can have other abilities that work as a p-res sink
2. do aliens have a problem defending at all? especially skulks.
3. early game aoe defense, aka hydras.
My questions is more on the side of, why do we need to keep making mines and traps for people to step into? these things are usually annoying to play against, and generally not a whole lot of fun to play as. I wouldnt mind it if there was a good reason for it, but imo your reasons arent convincing.
- removed flame damage type
Uhhhhh... what? I get how heavy damage could be changed to normal without a big deal, but the light damage on the pistol is only balanced if the damage is light or it gets nerfed damage wise.
Flame well, it would be nice to see Cysts not die to the lightest touch of a Flamethrower.
You mean that Exo Miniguns wont shred all alien lifeforms in <2 sec! woo!
(I can finally get rid of my signature! its been there since Exos were first released in beta!)
But now I wont be able to strafe dodge and weld hydras down faster than I could kill them with my LMG
edit: also, Mines being normal damage will be AMAZING and actually worth the cost if damage isn't nerfed
Even though aliens do not pay PRes for their abilities, they already pay premiums (that cannot be reclaimed like most marine weapons) on their expensive lifeforms, and risk losing their paid upgrades (such as carapace) when they lose structures (such as Shells). Any additional punishment on aliens for losing structures would not be fair.
Most importantly, losing "control" of acquired abilities (such as Leap) causes great frustration for alien players.
While its optimistic to expect deep and robust choices/tactics/playstyles from simple design, its often very rarely the case. Giving players lots of tools to reach a goal will often result in more complexity, but will also allow players to get much more creative in general. More creativity = more rewarding choices = funner gameply.
I can see the case for shadowstep (as it is more or less a gimped version of blink), but vortex is awesome. I look forward to seeing better players explore the ability more.
Move xeno to tier 2 ability. Make skulks somewhat viable against JP'ers. I would increase the time it takes to detonate by a little bit, and make the effect of an incoming exploding skulk more apparent. (visual and/or sound). Decreasing dmg a little bit or AoE range could also be explored.
Move the primal scream ability of lerks to tier 3 ability for skulks. I think a lerk has way too many tools at the moment. Ranged attack, fast bite, AoE dmg, and reduced damage buff. Giving this to skulks makes skulks viable end game. I could see how no pres cost on the skulk could make this OP, but as long as it isn't stackable and skulks don't gain anymor defensive viability than they currently do endgame, I think it could work. Perhaps it increases dmg by increments of X when Y amount of players are in Z range?
I don't particularly like the changes to the alien tech tree and drifter abilities in this mod. It felt like you used to have much more choices and variety in playstyle as khammander in the older builds. You could chose how to play your commander role to begin with (to gorgecomm or not to gorgecomm), now with the pres penalty it's become much more restrictive. You used to be able to research whatever ability you wanted, it was then clustered, and now it's just automatic. And drifters are suffering from an identity crisis now they no longer have their support abilities. I think they were in a reasonably good spot and didn't need any big changes.
I like most of the other changes though.
Maybe this is also in a bid to get rid of "hidden numbers."
I think it could reduce the complexity of the weapons system a lot if all attacks always did the amount of damage listed. Though there will be a pretty big overhaul of values as you say.
Also I think it could lead to easier tweaking in the future.
the main reason why i did this was that the weapons types (and the weapons which used them) didn't achieve the exact gameplay effect intended for them. for example, initially the onos had tons of armor, making the minigun the right weapon choice against it. unfortunately, this meant that the rifle or shotgun were pretty poor against an onos (the shotgun was even at light damage at one point, which was really pathetic against an onos). we had to tweak the onos, now its on relatively low armor, which means all weapons are "ok" against it (and of course dual minigun melts them away with heavy damage, but any other life form as well).
without having extremes, the damage type wont work, and on the contrary there should not be hard counters in the game either. which led us to the current situation, where light and heavy damage are quite meaningless to gameplay and just add another layer of complexity (hidden) for a player to learn.
or for the pistol: we decided to put it on light damage, because we wanted it to be a weapon to finish off aliens. during recent patches, the pistol reload animation time got increased, but the draw animation lowered. this already makes this weapon good to be a "finisher" weapon, since you want to have at first the rifle ready (longer draw animation) and then quickly switch to pistol for additional damage when you are either out of ammo or for more accuracy to snipe a retreating alien.
there are more examples, but it all breaks down to those damage types not being meaningful enough to justify the existance of those types
Nice addition, I really like that only lifeform specific abilities appear for the player (even Khamm has his unique Biomass unlocks on UI now)
Interesting change. I like that Marines can hit Hives to weaken all alien players (so to speak), which gives another huge incentive to actively protect Hives. However, it also means total health for each lifeform is constantly changing throughout the course of the game, which could lead to "I shot him x times and he still didn't die!" situations, if the shooter was really counting damage.
Going back to NS1 roots I see
I didn't see it mentioned so I assume this means not all damage types are being considered for removal, only the ones you mentioned (light, heavy, and flame).
I was just thinking puncture might be harder to drop. If Lerk spikes went from puncture to normal it will not do as much damage to marines, but if the dmg number is bumped up to compensate it would do too much to structures. And fades would no longer have a swipe penalty against structures either if left as effective -(side note, I thought the last few patches went a bit to far on the fade nerf when it dropped his structure damage so much).
I like the mechanic itself, but it is far from being ready for prime time in the vanilla game. Some rooms like like crap in continously full darkness (biodome is worst offender), infestation isn't lit, and many textures are fullbright. Emergency lighting should still be incorporated in some form (power surge, sentry batteries, etc), and it looks like Halloween overload with only orange for the fauna color. Posted a thread with more detailed feedback on possible improvements: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/131949/rework-the-power-node-system-lighting#latest
Also, Sewlek, can you make the 'fps' console command persistent until map change, or even client closure? Small annoying thing ever since it was added :P