Prioritize Phase Gates

SnXSnX Join Date: 2013-01-17 Member: 180145Members, Reinforced - Gold
What do you think about this? It's been keeping me thinking for some time now :)

A commander should be able to prioritize phase gates when having more then 2.
This will keep marines from phasing thru different gates when needed quickly somewhere. This could be OP but also could be an extra element for the commander to watch over, which again keeps the commander busy.

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Comments

  • sotanahtsotanaht Join Date: 2013-01-12 Member: 179215Members
    edited January 2014
    Comm changing the order would really screw with the marines trying to phase through who have already figured out where each phase is supposed to lead. Even more so when it changes BACK while they are in transit. It's still a good idea though. I also think turning them on and off at will is a better one. Would also be nice for comms to be able to link and unlink phase gates at will and create independent networks if they want to.

    Overall, it would be a buff but I don't see it being OP really. Worst case scenario they put multiple disabled backup phases in one room and then power surge when the aliens go for power instead. That could make taking a base near impossible, until marines run out of reinforcements to send in anyway. Really though it wouldn't be much harder than assaulting a base with IPs/beacon, a bit cheaper but those other structures have additional benefits as well.
  • Ghosthree3Ghosthree3 Join Date: 2010-02-13 Member: 70557Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    edited January 2014
    Or just don't have a phase gate in every second room. Alternatively pro comm micromanaging by recycling the gate you don't want people to go to then cancelling it after people have phased to the right place.

    EDIT: @d0ped0g this is how you turn them on and off :P
  • d0ped0gd0ped0g Join Date: 2003-05-25 Member: 16679Members
    edited January 2014
    Ghosthree3 wrote: »
    Or just don't have a phase gate in every second room. Alternatively pro comm micromanaging by recycling the gate you don't want people to go to then cancelling it after people have phased to the right place.

    EDIT: @d0ped0g this is how you turn them on and off :P

    I know you can recycle to turn them on and off. And I have done that on a few occasions (although tbh in the CC my head is probably too much in the clouds to do it as often as I should).

    A feature that only requires one button press to turn them off and and stay off until you turn them back on again would be nice though. As I said, it's probably possible to make a script that could possibly do it via automating the recycle method using hotkeys, but that's too exploity for my tastes. I want a feature.

    Frankly, when thinking about the micro involved in keeping phase gates in a recycle queue when a priority phase is required -> the only conclusion I can come to is that said micro doesn't really add anything all that interesting to the gameplay. May as well just automate the process and add it as a feature.

    Some may call this easy-mode. However, I just think the alternative of keeping it manual is tedious and unnecessary. Although it was probably not anticipated that recycle would be used in this way (I guess it may have already for ns1 though - I can't remember that far back. Could recycle be cancelled in ns1?).
  • B3rTB3rT Join Date: 2013-02-14 Member: 183058Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    d0ped0g wrote: »
    A feature that only requires one button press to turn them off and and stay off until you turn them back on again would be nice though. As I said, it's probably possible to make a script that could possibly do it via automating the recycle method using hotkeys, but that's too exploity for my tastes. I want a feature.

    As cool and helpful this feature would be. (And I wished I had it quite often)
    If it gets implemented, they need to implement a downside of this, too. Because otherwise, you could have a phasegate in every room.

    So maybe a limit of phasegates of maybe 4? Or a really long time (2 to 3 minutes?) to power up and shutdown the gates. So phasegates to protect extractors don't work, because the extractor would be destroyed before the phasegate is online.

  • d0ped0gd0ped0g Join Date: 2003-05-25 Member: 16679Members
    edited January 2014
    B3rT wrote: »
    If it gets implemented, they need to implement a downside of this, too. Because otherwise, you could have a phasegate in every room.

    I think the downside is that you're spending 15 tres on a phase gate in every room. I dunno though, could be OP. I'm too tired to contemplate the ins and outs of it at the moment.
  • B3rTB3rT Join Date: 2013-02-14 Member: 183058Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    I don't know, 15 tres sounds like a good investment to protect a 10 tres extractor, at least if the aliens aggressively attack them and you would build them multiple times otherwise.

    (I am talking about pub play, not comp.)
  • meatmachinemeatmachine South England Join Date: 2013-01-06 Member: 177858Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    Allowing comm to set a priority phasegate would be awesome. Especially if the priority PG was indicated on the map with a thicker line/ arrows or something. Would add a great element of control to PGs - exactly the kind of polish this game needs.
  • blindblind Join Date: 2010-04-17 Member: 71437Members, Squad Five Gold
  • Ghosthree3Ghosthree3 Join Date: 2010-02-13 Member: 70557Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    Yeah I'm with @blind this lets you get away with more gates without the consequences.
  • MuckyMcFlyMuckyMcFly Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    I thought everyone loved the phase gate dance, step out, step in, step out..... ^:)^
  • d0ped0gd0ped0g Join Date: 2003-05-25 Member: 16679Members
    B3rT wrote: »
    I don't know, 15 tres sounds like a good investment to protect a 10 tres extractor, at least if the aliens aggressively attack them and you would build them multiple times otherwise.

    (I am talking about pub play, not comp.)

    The idea that you could potentially plonk a phase gate in every room, and more or less instantly responding to threats sounds OP. However, the idea that you could get to that point, while still investing in phase gates, and have enough res to invest in enough tech/upgrades to deal with the threats as they grow seems farfetched.

    E.g. if aliens get to fade, will you have shotguns and enough upgrades to deal with it. Because responding to it instantly isn't going to matter in this case.

    After typing that out however, I realised that this assumes that said phase spam would be attempted early game. I guess you could get to the end game using conventional strategy, they use the excess res income you have already established on phase spam to ensure the victory. In this case an on off switch may in fact need an additional downside or something like a phase gate structure limit. Again, I'm too tired to think about this clearly though.

    And you're right - it'd probably be more of a pub issue than a comp one.
  • meatmachinemeatmachine South England Join Date: 2013-01-06 Member: 177858Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    Even in the future, with technology allowing instant teleportation of living beings.... Interface designers are priced above and beyond what a military budget can provide.
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    edited January 2014
    2 things.
    1. Usually beacon is enough
    2. It means that a bad comm could screw up the game even more than usual.

    Unless someone can find a way to fix 2., then I'm going to disagree with this.
  • NeokenNeoken Bruges, Belgium Join Date: 2004-03-20 Member: 27447Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester
    PGs are balanced because the more you place, the less usefull they become. Being able to activate/deactivate PGs at will would make them OP, as others have mentioned as well.
  • d0ped0gd0ped0g Join Date: 2003-05-25 Member: 16679Members
    edited January 2014
    So... priority gates. How would this work? Do you make something a priority gate for x seconds or do you designate a priority gate and it is a priority gate until it is unset or another gate is designated the priority gate (such that all gates lead to said phase gate duing this time, or during the x seconds in former example)?
  • AiorosAioros Join Date: 2003-03-24 Member: 14850Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
    you already got that feature with with hotkeys and recycle.
    dont kill the view skill items a commander is able to use.
  • CyberKunCyberKun Join Date: 2013-02-02 Member: 182733Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited January 2014
    Hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
  • d0ped0gd0ped0g Join Date: 2003-05-25 Member: 16679Members
    edited January 2014
    EDIT: cleaning up posts
  • CyberKunCyberKun Join Date: 2013-02-02 Member: 182733Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited January 2014
  • d0ped0gd0ped0g Join Date: 2003-05-25 Member: 16679Members
    edited January 2014
  • CyberKunCyberKun Join Date: 2013-02-02 Member: 182733Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited January 2014
    *Edit* WE WILL REACH AN AGREEMENT!
  • d0ped0gd0ped0g Join Date: 2003-05-25 Member: 16679Members
    edited January 2014
    EDIT: agreement reached.
  • CyberKunCyberKun Join Date: 2013-02-02 Member: 182733Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited January 2014
    Fair enough. Since you have bridged hand to be nice, I will at least do the same.

    The issue I have with both suggestions is that both of them, yours and the OP, will be increase the defensive power more than needed for Marine bases. I am not disagreeing that they would not work out, it is just the balance aspect is funny. Phasegates being user unfriendly is a major thing that balances out Marine bases for the mid to late game and just buffing the user friendly does not consider how it will buff the Marines.

    For the manner of how priority phasegate would work, I just don't care how it would be implemented as it does not need to be. If it was, I would imagine that the first phasegate blink will automatically go to the priority one and then every blink after would follow normal paths. Give it a ten second duration and it would work. Work mechanically, but not in balance. Marines have Beacon for that and it has built in weaknesses that are important. Hell, what was just said was basically already said in joshsss post but I added more.

    The only thing that I could see to be done is make it so you can redraw the Phastegate path, as I can't see that being a serious buff. Then again, that is not really needed.

    For the reason I've seemed so testy, this suggestion does not have any comments on balance. It just says, this is cool. Any suggestion that does not talk about the balance aspect should be ignored. *Edited part* Also, it is on the one that suggests the change to defend it and tell why it should be. If people that like the current method are a bit flippant, it is to be expected if there is not a strong case for the change for them to comment on.
  • d0ped0gd0ped0g Join Date: 2003-05-25 Member: 16679Members
    edited January 2014
    Yea probably I probably shouldn't have been snarky and throwing words round like spam and contentless because I do concede that it is a legitimate point that we shouldn't be legitimizing OP/short-sighted ideas by continuing to discuss them. I wasn't completely ignoring points that were saying it would OP though. I did try to a pose potential counterarguments that it might not necessarily be, but on reflection I do concede that it is likely OP - unless reasonable counterarguments present themselves that could convince me otherwise (but I don't think they will). I was a little shortsighted in claiming that the res investment in phase gate spam was perhaps enough of a downside. I was tired :D

    Ultimately, right now, I don't really think it's a necessary change or even a desirable one. It does seem nice at first, but less nice when you do actually think about it. It could possibly be balanced with enough downsides, but because the feature isn't exactly necessary, I don't think it's really worth it ironing out the kinks.

    Considering the downsides already listed - Simple phase gate limits could be established for example, but obviously comes with it's own disadvantage of adding arbitrary limits (which I guess is up to debate whether this is a significant disadvantage but if it's a disadvantage, and the feature it is allowing is not necessary, then there's less reason to include the feature at all). Cooldowns and powering up/off times could add downsides, but unless combined with phase limits may not, practically, be enough from keeping it OP - although that would require further reflection that is probably not worth it for me personally cause the feature isn't necessary and I don't really care that it's not included.

    I would care if the feature were actually being considered by UWE because it would need to be thoroughly examined first and right now the concensus is - that it's OP - so yeah, would be a mistake at this point to include. Whilst the discussion has only really started in this particular thread, I assume the other threads on this subject have already picked the subject to death, so I trust that these threads covered everything, and that there's a reason that it's not in the game.

    Anyway, ima edit out that back and forth to clean up the thread a little.
  • Ghosthree3Ghosthree3 Join Date: 2010-02-13 Member: 70557Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    I imagine setting gates to high priority would mean that you would phase to each of them first, before the others. Then there's a hidden cool down, say 5 seconds of not phasing, and it resets so you phase to all the high priority ones again.
  • d0ped0gd0ped0g Join Date: 2003-05-25 Member: 16679Members
    edited January 2014
    For clarification - what do you mean by "it resets so you phase to all the high priority ones again".
  • Ghosthree3Ghosthree3 Join Date: 2010-02-13 Member: 70557Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    Like if there's 3 high priority gates, call them 1 2 and 3. Also 3 normal gates, 4 5 and 6, and you phase through 1-2-3-4-5 but not 6. Then wait 5 seconds, it'll then take you back to 1-2-3-etc.
  • MuckyMcFlyMuckyMcFly Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    What we all really want is more maps right? :P
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