Allow echo to uninfested areas + Shade hive changes
d0ped0g
Join Date: 2003-05-25 Member: 16679Members
Join Date: 2003-05-25 Member: 16679Members
Two ideas here. I thought they best go in the same thread:
1)
Currently you can move structures off infestation but not echo to it. I am proposing that it be changed so that you can. Obviously, eggs would be excluded from this.
Reasoning:
Anyway, this would come at the cost of further incentivizing Shift hive when it already has enzyme, celerity, and a pretty darn good version of echo already. Also whilst I do think that it can be argued that requiring infestation dues introduce some interesting elements towards micromanaging/time allocation, I also think it would be in the better interest of all levels of play to chip away a little bit at some of the more labouring restrictions in the game, if its done in a way that can still retain balance.
2)
Give the shade hive a few buffs to incentivize it a bit more.
Suggestions:
1)
Currently you can move structures off infestation but not echo to it. I am proposing that it be changed so that you can. Obviously, eggs would be excluded from this.
Reasoning:
- Buildings die off infestation anyway, so anything echoed would have to be supported by a crag if it is to remain there for even a short period of time - making it less OP (due to the extra 10 tres investment necessary for any off-infestation bases) and further incentivizing support structures over whips + lifeforms + upgrades.
- Whips cannot root on infestation so there's no danger of nasty OP whip bullshit
- It would make echoing to locations that are only just beginning to infest less tedious. Waiting to echo that harvestor but the infestation is taking forever to spread onto the node? No prob, just send it there anyway. The infest will get there eventually. You don't have to stress about the more cumbersome aspects of micromanaging your attention.
- Further incentivizes shades in a shadeless world (in the form of invisible off-infestation healing bases in enemy territory).
- It would help sneaky hive drops
- I would suggest that you can echo shifts, but only if there's an extra shift. I.e. a shift can't echo itself to a place off infestation but it can echo others. That way it makes it harder to echo structures out whilst still allowing it if an investment is made into a second shift. This is good because it makes the off infestation structures more vulnerable if they are found and it would be too powerful to allow these structures to be so easily saved via echo. It effectively means that any structure you send off infestation is given a one way ticket instead of a potential return trip unless you get infestation in the area, buy a 2nd shift, or move them out manually.
- Marines have a similar ability in power surge if you think about it. While the key restriction for building that the game places on aliens is infestation, for marines it is power. Power surge is a way to circumvent the restriction to a minor degree at the cost of investing in a tech path. My proposed idea could be described the same way (although regrettably where it differs is that the tech path for aliens is already a pretty strong one, whereas building a robo factory is in general a less practical choice in comparison even if it can sometimes be effective).
Anyway, this would come at the cost of further incentivizing Shift hive when it already has enzyme, celerity, and a pretty darn good version of echo already. Also whilst I do think that it can be argued that requiring infestation dues introduce some interesting elements towards micromanaging/time allocation, I also think it would be in the better interest of all levels of play to chip away a little bit at some of the more labouring restrictions in the game, if its done in a way that can still retain balance.
2)
Give the shade hive a few buffs to incentivize it a bit more.
Suggestions:
- If a shade hive is researched, allow shades (but nothing else) to be built off infestation and not lose health there. Shade hive used to be sneaky hive back in ns1 when you could literally plonk a sensory chamber ANYWHERE. Nowdays, it's hard to drop a shade and it not be noticed for many reasons I don't exactly need to elaborate on (yall have played the game). Thus even when using shade hive it's not often that it's even worth it dropping a shade because it's simply not going to make a difference (apart from a difference in your wallet when you realize you're out 10 tres for a shade that just got found and killed). The ability to build shades in forward locations (i.e. places that aren't quite obviously in alien territory) would increase both their survivability and viability as a support structure to invest 10 tres on. Currently this can already be acheived with tunnels, but it'd be nice if it could be done independently of them.
- Give ink to the drifter instead of hallucination. Tone down visual obstruction. Make it unable to block scans. Hallucination can sometimes be used to good effect, but with such small hp, scans+obs hard countering, and very few managable openings occuring for its use in the space of a game, it it has little practical utility. Usually it's just a way for the onos i'm trying to support to end up dead because it forces me to scramble to reselect the drifter in a sea of hallucinations - one of which being a drifter ;_;
- Alternatively (for those who don't want the sensory overload of sheer immersion that making ink a drifter ability might result in), maybe a completely different drifter ability would be more appropriate. Somebody mentioned something in another thread about a drifter ability that turned it into a mobile shade. I think this could be cool if the drifter itself remained visible.
- Change the shade hive active ability to be "radar jammer" or something similar in meaning but more alien sounding. It will block scans like ink (without the visual effect) but instead of - clicking it once, it eats up 3 res, then a cooldown, then you click it again for a new ink - instead, you click it once to start it and it block scans whilst eating up 1 res per x seconds until you click it again to turn it off or you run you're out of res to keep it going. Observatories hard counter it however (it doesn't block anything within the obs range, thus still allowing ARCing with the investment of an observatory and also protecting against ninja shades in marine bases).
Comments
I can elaborate further on why but I've done enough typing for the moment.
If you want to get that crag back it's an extra 10 res for a second shift that serves no other purpose but to allow return voyages. I don't know what practical purpose echoing a crag into a marine base would serve because it's going to die right away unless it's part of an all-in push, in which case you're risking the 10 tres if it doesn't go well (making it a high-risk, high reward move rather than an OP one). You could even add in a condition that it can't be echoed to an uninfested area if it is in obs range although I don't think you'd really need to cause quite simply, plonking alien structures in a marine base would just be a good way to lose said structures.
I think there could very well be hypothetical scenarios in which this would be OP, but I don't believe this is one of them.
EDIT:
Mind you, that's mainly from a pub perspective. With the coordinated pushes that happen in 6v6 comp, I just wonder if it might not be OP then (i.e. plonking a crag down in a massive push) - even if you are risking the crag. I'd be curious to hear a comp players perspective on this because I can't even remember the last time I played a pug let alone a scrim/match.
I can assure you that being able to drop a Crag anywhere on the map without delay is a lot stronger than you think. Every other building offensively would be quite silly, but the 12 res cost for a Crag is already incredibly OP reasonable. Every push having a Crag would massively increase the Aliens pushing ability and while they need a buff to pushing abilty later game, this would destroy the mid to early game.
Shift Harvesters alone already have the advantage of being able to instantly place a built Res Tower in more aggressive locations without worrying about a Drifter going to die. It is also easier and more secure. It doesn't need the advantage of also being stupid fast as well. Combine this with being able to drop Crags, I would be so ungodly aggressive with my Harvesters that non-Shift Hive would be so slow and inefficient that I would only be going Shift Hive. Hell, I already only go Shift Hive this release.
There is a reason Shades are not spammed, and that is rather simple. Crags, easier to detect, super useful even when detected. Shade, hard to detect, average when detected. For the idea of sneaky hive drops, no. They are not worth the risk unless one has a Gorge tunnel to it, and that already makes infestation.
This is super arbitrary in general, and this is a fake downside. The suggestion is already OP, and just trying to add a limit like the buildings only go one way is not enough, because the idea of buildings only going one way even without infestation is OP enough.
Power Surge if anything is slightly worse than Shift as it is already. Attempting to hype up Power Surge as being as OP is wrong and also this game isn't symmetrical anyways.
All in all, the Shift idea is broken and unnecessary and would make the Hive choice even less of a choice.
On the Shade Hive, I know they are already doing stuff to it and I want to see what it is before new suggestions are made.
1) Crags heal can keep some dying structures alive for quite a while. Id call it OP.
2) earlier resgain is a buff.
1) Shadas not taking any damage non infestation shades on ns2 sound OP, even if they worked fine in ns1. In ns1 the gorges had to go around the map making a entire sensory network, the kham makes this job way to easy.
2) I disagree. I often see illusions used and not always scanned. Ink while more rare is a nice way to eat some arc fire. Your suggestion would destroy ink arc protection while giving nothing back, I fail to see how it would even be a buff and not a nerf.
3) While I think is sort of ok for this task already I fail to see the logic in your suggestion. You want a hive techpath's suggested ressucking ink ability be hardcountered by a 20 res aoe cheap building? I would argue it would need to be the opposite and need both a obs and scan to get close to countering that.
Not to mention the amount of new comms or trolls who just go ahead and drop harvesters all over the map that aren't cysted.
It wouldn't make it significantly faster, it would just make it significantly less tedious. Currently I think it's more worth it just to build harvestors regularly now that the cost has gone up slightly. So it could use a buff. And this one isn't much of a buff. It's just something nice to have. An alternative suggestion if this doesn't go through (and it likely won't due to people overhyping the utility of just plonking a crag where-ever you want without really thinking about it practically) - is to allow echo movement to would-be infested areas (i.e. places where a cyst in the middle of being constructed already or just finished building) if the infestation doesn't spread fast enough.
The reason is that shades suck when they're already obviously in alien territory. Refer to my proposition on shades in the second part of the post for a description of why.
It's not a fake downside - it's a downside. It's not arbitrary - it's by logical design. I would have suggested simply not allowing to echo the other way, but it would go against current game design.
I'm not hyping it up as being OP, but instead, similar. Don't put words in my mouth.[/quote]
It's a bit of a buff, but not overpowered. Besides, harvestors need to be built before the resgain applies. You're still only getting harvestors up as fast as drifters/gorges can build them.
If anything I just wanna see how this would work. It's not like cloaking is used to great effect in-game at the moment. Shades frankly suck, and anything to make them better would be good. It wouldn't be easy to build a shade unless you had a gorge, or shade/shift (so you can echo). But with that tech path you may regret not having mucous membrane.
That suggestion was supposed to be considered in conjunction with the radar jammer. So it wouldn't get rid of arc protection.
Doesn't obs already hard-counter ink anyway? Or have I been fed some misinformation about this. The idea of needing both an obs and a scan is a good one. Frankly, even if ink doesn't get hardcountered aswell at the moment I still think it's worse because a) it never works and b) when it does work (which is never) it still has a cooldown so it only really delays your destruction rather than prevents it c) as a result of a) and b) it simply isn't worth the attention doing the extra micro or the 3 res every time I click it and arcs still get through.
I'm not disagreeing cause I don't think these are potentially valid points, but instead offering counterpoints. It could in fact be a gigantic mess of an idea but I don't anybody (including most of all, myself) would know for sure without trying it hands-on first. As I said I may try my hands at modding to properly access the concept's viability.
I don't think new comms would be an issue as they'd have to grasp the concept of echo first. It's a hell of a hypothetical that a new comm would evolve shift hive, plonk a shift next to the main base harvestor, and echo it off somewhere. Mind you I suppose it could happen.
I think you raise a perfectly valid point that it simply doesn't make sense that you can send structures outside of infestation. Although a counterpoint would be that marine comm can already drop medpacks, ammos and structure blueprints in unpowered areas - not making a direct comparison in terms of balance/gameplay but merely pointing out there are minor similarities in terms of 'making sense'.
In light of your comment I would propose that you would still need 'hive sight' but not infestation. I.e. you would not be able to echo stuff anywhere outside the 'fog of war'. Meaning you could still echo stuff to locations where aliens or drifters could see. This, in combination with observatories blocking echos to uninfested locations would hopefully mitigate any nasty OP mucous+healing wave shenanigans. It also would make it even more difficult to retrieve forward structures for those who don't think that the hindsight required and strategical decision into invest in a potentially useless extra shift is not enough of a factor in keeping forward structures vulnerable.
All the points that you don't need any more reason to go shift hive is valid and I think I covered that in the OP because I too agree with that. That's why I proposed these changes with the shade hive buffs, and also made the post about reverting enzyme as a shift-exclusive ability as these attempt to mitigate any extra incentive echo brings for hive choice viability. I think 1 res enzyme could work if appropriate nerfs were made (lose the speed boost by putting it back on storm, and maybe half the duration, or reduce the attack speed slightly, or a little bit of both) - thus removing the need to have shift in order to have access to enzyme. I think a combination of all these changes in the thread would put hive viability options in a good place. Just implementing the shift echo would obviously make shift the only choice though.
These are all buffs though, granted. Would probably put Alien vs Marine win percentages in a bad place.
Even you know that these buffs are not needed and still want them. Not only are the buffs not needed, it is undesirable. One of the most interesting things about Alien command is the different tech paths in the start, and you want to make Shift the only viable one.
True, I started thinking just placing rts w/ out infest as opposed to echo, my bad there.
Also true enough, but I'd imagine it's more likely for marines to have some crazy system like that in their own facility, whereas aliens would obviously not have the comforts of such things as... well... aliens. But you know maybe w/ the whole fog of war thing, it wouldn't be so bad, but then it would be helpful to have like some kind of visible sight radius for drifters or skulks or whatever to actually show where you're fogged at on the map. Pretty sure I saw a huge old discussion about FOW though, can of worms methinks!
Anyways, not tryin to knock the idea, simply sayin it seems a little out there imo to think of aliens just echoing stuff willy nilly wherever they please. Just not sure about it.
Read the paragraph above it before you put even more words in my mouth - you know, the one that starts off with "you don't need any more reason to go shift hive ... I too agree with that". I'm proposing that this change come with disincentivizing shift more by making enzyme not shift-exclusive and also introducing shade hive buffs. So no, I do not "want to make Shift the only viable one".
Yes the buffs are not needed from a balance perspective. It would throw win percentages out of whack a bit. However, I'm also in favour of other buffs that simply wouldn't work in the game as it currently is. For example more responsive jetpacks and fade blinks: one would argue that jetpacks and blink is already responsive enough and the energy management is fine too, but if other aspects of the game were improved to make this less OP then I think it would result in a more rewarding game experience. I would never suggest that such a change (e.g. better fades) just be thrown into the game as it currently is though even if I am in favour of it as something that should be worked towards if legitimate options present themselves to retain balance whilst preserving fun gameplay. Things would need to be addressed first (like lack of alien ressink issues for introducing fade buffs).
In terms of the ideas proposed in the OP, admittedly I'm not sure how you'd go about mitigating the effect it would have on win percentages (although I think the effect is probably a little smaller than you might imagine). And also I guess it's not exactly as simple as arbitrarily throwing marines a few buffs here and there to account for aliens being able to do more, because it's about retaining balance for all areas and stages of the game (e.g. you can't just casually decide to make marines stronger cause then it throws off the early game and marine vs skulk gameplay at all stages of the game as well as a veritable plethora of other things). Therefore such a proposed change would need to be thoroughly assessed to the imbalances it would cause and if there are any means in which this imbalance could be addressed without making the game less fun purely for the sake of introducing a new feature. Hell, if the devs had such foresight at when first working on ns2 we wouldn't even have alien comm and we'd probably be a lot better of for it.
With the game close to a 50/50 win rate it could be said that any change is undesirable because it will ultimately make one side weaker or stronger, thus skewing the win rate. Doesn't mean that changes still can't occur or that balance can't be retained. Hell, wasn't balance around 50/50 around the time of brick skulks? Does that mean that skulk movement should not have been reworked because it would buff aliens and thus have the potential to unbalance win percentages? No, it was reworked because it improved gameplay and balance didn't necessarily have to suffer because guess what, other things can be worked on too.
Well you raise probably the strongest point in that it simply wouldn't make sense. As much as I personally am not one to care when my immersion is taken away from me, this would be hard to wrap my head around. Maybe a little easier than some because I'm used to ns1 where there's no infest anyway. But in the realm of ns2, it does admittedly seem rather illogical that alien comm should be allowed to teleport structures outside it's own controlled zone (i.e. the infestation). Mind you I also had difficulty wrapping my head around structures being able to move independently of echo.
One could argue that structures can already teleport to uninfested areas when the infestation is receding - but, at the risk of completely shutting down my own argument, this is, quite frankly, a weak argument (admittedly, as is the medpack/ammo/blueprint comparison I made in the other post), as the echo still begins while infestation is still there, thus it makes more sense.
That's extremely fair reasoning. Good, well thought out post.
I'd contest that the obs condition mitigates this - however, that could easily be argued against by saying a contested room doesn't necessarily have to be a marine base. I guess that would then beg the question whether the potential 12 res loss is worth it for said room (probably more of an issue in pub because there's more room for things to go differently than you might have imagined during a push - e.g. skulks going in one by one when they were previously all grouped up to go in together). I guess all marine bases don't have to have observatories though (most are simple phase gates) and to force this on them in order to prevent being lol-rushed with a crag is perhaps unfair. It would also up the risk factor in going arms lab first or mines then a delayed obs (which too, is perhaps unfair) even if it is a risk in itself to invest in support structures early (when you don't necessarily know they don't have an obs in base). Also, on the topic of whether it's worth it if it's not a marine base a room doesn't have to be a marine base for it to be important - i.e. for clearing it to have a significant enough effect on the game to justify a potential 12 res loss (e.g. a chokepoint).
Bear in mind that the majority of what I just said is against my own idea, even if I do appear open to it potentially not being all that OP as one might imagine.
EDIT: I guess that potential 12 tres loss doesn't really scale well in the late game though. Who cares if you lose a 12 tres crag when you already have all of your upgrades and you're supporting a push with lifeforms totalling >100 pres (and even more in egg conversion charges). This then begs the question, should aliens be that powerful at late game. To see just how powerful i'd have to try it out for myself. Imo the primary thing holding marines back is getting to the late game in a good position rather than how powerful they are if they if they do. Talking strictly high skilled games here: I think that jps+shotty's+med support from a very good comm do have the advantage over higher lifeforms+drifter support. So I'm all for buffing the alien's late game (although I haven't experienced first hand the horrors of PvE the comp players experience so maybe this lacks perspective), if marines can get to theirs, and in a good or ok position, a little easier.
Whilst buffing echo certainly doesn't help this, it could always be unlocked at a certain biomass (off-infestation echoing) so that it only comes in the mid->late game, or (at the risk of making this sound simpler than it actually is because balance is a fragile beast) throw marines a few bones to help them get through their mid game more easily without (early game they're already fine because good marine > good skulk). However this calls into question specifically whether the mucous+healing-wave is practically manageable, once two hives goes up. Tbh, I'm not sure, but I'd like to find out.
If it were unlocked via biomass and only introduced in the mid->late game, it would also mitigate (slightly) the "usually there's not an obs in a marine base" problem as it gives marines more time to invest in one, rather than force marines to do it early game when res is tight if they want to protect their phases from crag drop rushes.
Any reason why it wasn't introduced? Also, tbh - I'd prefer obs immunity over scan immunity. It would allow you to actively protect against hallucination attacks but not completely prevent them from entering marine bases.
I can imagine the hp boost wasn't introduced because it probably ate up too many bullets. It'd be cool there was an hp buff, but it also didn't show damage numbers or blood upon hitting the hallucination. Meaning you don't have to necessarily shoot it down completely or notice it's moving funny to realise it's not an actual lifeform that you just wasted a bunch of bullets on, but if you aren't diligent enough you may waste said bullets.
Tbh the only reason I'm suggesting a change from hallucination is because the current one isn't all that effective. I'd be for a hallucination buff, especially if it came with AI.
As for the topic, I wouldn't mind shades not taking damage off infestation, any shade buff is a good right now IMO.
I can certainly see where you are coming from with this to add more variety to game play, and a sort of half solution to be more like NS1 where structures are dropped any where. But I feel to use the Echo mechanic for this still isn't really going to work (ie, that is like being able to build anywhere on the map (I think what you are trying to get at), with the bonus of having the structure pre-built at a safe location (which isn't the case in NS1, you had to get your gorge to the said location first and be able to build your things without harassment). So, for my style of play, I think it is too much in alien favor. Did you have a specific scenario in mind of how it might be used? When I made the 4-5 skulk push comment, I was thinking when I pub, in Docking (I think), to take Lockers if marines start Cafe, you need a big pack of skulks. And 3/4 times our push is successful if the skulk pack had a gorge that just heal spray the group (we would regularly take out the entire marine team (that is about 4 skulks vs 2 waves of 3-5 marines). So, if I can echo a crag to that location without cysts, the skulk pack would be even stronger. I can also then send the gorge to the other side of the map to power build my rts (making for fast expansion). You can probably play out this scenario to many rooms and "must hold" areas on other maps. Then you can see how powerful it is to be able to Echo any where.
As to the OBS hard countering the Echo anywhere, don't forget most marine starts don't have the OBS covering the entire base, so I can send a skulk to scout the marine base and Echo to the opposite end of the marine base with a shade then a crag. Whilst it is true you can build multiple OBS in base, that is such a res sink, I wouldn't do it as a marine comm unless I am swimming in res.
EDIT: added description to the spoiler
This is actually a really good idea. It's a pricey investment because aliens actually do have other stuff to spend tres on.
Also don't forget that you wouldn't build it off infestation to begin with. That'd be insanity to drop 15tres and an 8tres drifter off alien territory when marines should be pressuring all lanes constantly. You'd build it off infestation and then still have to actually move it in to position making sure it wasn't in a positively OP position; unless you had a shift hive as well but that would only promote a shift/shade hive combo which is rarely seen! Think of the possibilities! This is actually really exciting.
This too is a pretty cool idea. It might actually be too OP though. I think the ink ability is a nice mechanic to blind marines although having it on a mobile drifter could be too strong because it allows skulks to blitz it down hallways which marines should have advantage over anyway. Also fade blink would blend in too well.
Mobile shade would be OP. You'd be reverting to pre-b250 were you'd plop drifters outside marine start and be able to anticipate all marine movement without any kind of player brain skill which is something that separates good alien teams (fraggers) to great alien teams (anticipation of marines to set up appropriate ambushes on lanes before marines get back there after having wiped one lane, bit res, and move back. All those actions require great timing and map awareness which is a skill in itself)
This is also a really good idea imo. Good counter, good cost idea. Pretty cool kham mechanic!