Suggestion: Make Ink cloud mask health bars

twilitebluetwiliteblue bug stalker Join Date: 2003-02-04 Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited August 2016 in NS2 General Discussion
(Oops this is suppose to be in the Ideas forum)

I propose a simple experimental change:

While remaining inside an Ink cloud from a Shade, alien players do not display their health bars to marines.

Hopefully this will promote more early Shade Hive and create interesting counter-plays.
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Comments

  • Legend_BossLegend_Boss UK Join Date: 2014-02-27 Member: 194394Members
    Maybe make the health bars appear above marines so they blindly shoot at each other.

    And make the marine hear alien taunt, movement and bite sounds moving around them to create additional confusion
  • FrozenFrozen New York, NY Join Date: 2010-07-02 Member: 72228Members, Constellation
    Still think it'd be better if vampirism was replaced with a skill that did this among other "feedback removal" type stuff.
  • YojimboYojimbo England Join Date: 2009-03-19 Member: 66806Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    Maybe make the health bars appear above marines so they blindly shoot at each other.

    And make the marine hear alien taunt, movement and bite sounds moving around them to create additional confusion

    Love the idea of the second sentence.
  • MoFo1MoFo1 United States Join Date: 2014-07-25 Member: 197612Members
    edited August 2016
    While I'm all for ways to buff shade hive so it's used more, I think this would be both useless and counter productive..

    For starters the commander would have to drop forward shades, then they'd have to actually use ink, and on top of that the aliens would have to remain near the shade to get the effect...

    Maybe useful for end game hive rushes, but it could promote bad game habits (gotta stay near shades) and discourage res biting (let someone else bite res, I'm staying on def where I'm covered)


    Not to mention it's hard enough to get commanders to drop forward shifts for energy.. The likelihood of them spending res dropping shades and inking just to block hp bars is ridiculously low.
  • VetinariVetinari Join Date: 2013-07-23 Member: 186325Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver
    Now that silence has been moved to shift, shade is a lot less useful again, sadly.

    I'm not saying it's useless. But it doesn't compare to shift, which gives you Celerity AND silence, arguably the two most powerful upgrades, and crag gives you carapace and regen, which you need to make your late game Onos less squishy. On the shade side there's focus, which is a pretty powerful buff to fades, but those aren't as crucial in pub right now as they used to be, and they are only a small part of the team, anyway. There's aura, which is hugely useful to low to mid skilled players, but diminishes with skill, especially if you've got ears and silence. And there's vampirism, which does nothing regen doesn't do better with less risk.
    I used to really like shade for phantom + aura, but right now, shift is the way to go.

    I don't think buffing ink of all things will fix this. How often do you really see ink? Especially if you could have echo or healwave instead...
  • BicsumBicsum Join Date: 2012-02-27 Member: 147596Members, Reinforced - Gold
    edited August 2016
    ^ Yep, buffing shade hive is not going to help much imo. A buff might make shade hive more favourable compared to crag hive, but shift hive will remain a necessity, because of the importance of the celerity speed buff, which helps you in every aspect of this game.

    I'm currently trying to write a mod that "shifts" the speed adjustments from celerity to biomass and make celerity about other movement variables like acceleration and/or air control, so that celerity will allow you to do more erratic movement in combat. This will make the other hive types more intersting to use, because you don't lack the necessary speed to compete with strong marines.

    Read more here: http://www.ensl.org/topics/1707?page=2
  • RevanCoranaRevanCorana Join Date: 2015-08-14 Member: 207125Members
    Silence has absolutely nothing to do with shift hive, big big departure from the original game design here which doesnt even help to make shift hive less mandatory as first hive because basically having silence and celerity in the same hive means you go celerity first until you have 3 spurs, once you have 3 you go silence and start easymode resbiting/parasitin we have stupidly easy marine aiming now we have stupidly easy skulking.
  • BicsumBicsum Join Date: 2012-02-27 Member: 147596Members, Reinforced - Gold
    edited August 2016
    Silence has absolutely nothing to do with shift hive, big big departure from the original game design here which doesnt even help to make shift hive less mandatory as first hive because basically having silence and celerity in the same hive means you go celerity first until you have 3 spurs, once you have 3 you go silence and start easymode resbiting/parasitin we have stupidly easy marine aiming now we have stupidly easy skulking.

    It was changed because the combination of silence and celerity was considered too strong. Also, I prefer celerity to silence no matter the level of spurs.
  • RevanCoranaRevanCorana Join Date: 2015-08-14 Member: 207125Members
    Bicsum wrote: »
    Silence has absolutely nothing to do with shift hive, big big departure from the original game design here which doesnt even help to make shift hive less mandatory as first hive because basically having silence and celerity in the same hive means you go celerity first until you have 3 spurs, once you have 3 you go silence and start easymode resbiting/parasitin we have stupidly easy marine aiming now we have stupidly easy skulking.

    It was changed because the combination of silence and celerity was too strong. Also, I prefer celerity to silence no matter the level of spurs.

    combining aura with silence is far more cancerous
  • RevanCoranaRevanCorana Join Date: 2015-08-14 Member: 207125Members
    edited August 2016
    it's simple really shade hive is deception, silence is deception, stop f***ing with the game design

    shift is meant to be related to energy and speed but out of nowhere there is silence, it's okay it just makes shift hive EVEN MORE the first hive staple because having ENZYME, CELERITY, SILENCE, ECHO are too useful early game compared to everything else.

    Then as 2nd hive you only go shade if you are threatened by arcs basically otherwise 100% go crag. that's called linear autopilot and this is what you can see in bad strategy games.

    Same is true for alien lifeforms coming in the same linear order, same for marine weapons coming in also a linear order.

    This is getting offtopic but seriously NS2 with months of updates still remains a extremely linear game! not that much strategy to speak of when 2 teams of equal skill are facing.
  • FrozenFrozen New York, NY Join Date: 2010-07-02 Member: 72228Members, Constellation
    Bicsum wrote: »
    ^ Yep, buffing shade hive is not going to help much imo. A buff might make shade hive more favourable compared to crag hive, but shift hive will remain a necessity, because of the importance of the celerity speed buff, which helps you in every aspect of this game.

    I'm currently trying to write a mod that "shifts" the speed adjustments from celerity to biomass and make celerity about other movement variables like acceleration and/or air control, so that celerity will allow you to do more erratic movement in combat. This will make the other hive types more intersting to use, because you don't lack the necessary speed to compete with strong marines.

    Read more here: http://www.ensl.org/topics/1707?page=2

    You realize that aliens will stand 0 chance without enough speed at hive 1 vs jetpackers, right? Celerity is mandatory right now to deal with jetpackers.
  • BicsumBicsum Join Date: 2012-02-27 Member: 147596Members, Reinforced - Gold
    edited August 2016
    it's simple really shade hive is deception, silence is deception, stop f***ing with the game design

    shift is meant to be related to energy and speed but out of nowhere there is silence, [..]

    Shift is about "speed and energy", because it has celerity and adrenaline. NS1 used to have silence on the movement chamber as well. If you want an explanation as to what sound has to do with movement: the movement of your emitted sound waves is stopped, making your silent. There you go, you're welcome


    Frozen wrote: »
    Bicsum wrote: »
    ^ Yep, buffing shade hive is not going to help much imo. A buff might make shade hive more favourable compared to crag hive, but shift hive will remain a necessity, because of the importance of the celerity speed buff, which helps you in every aspect of this game.

    I'm currently trying to write a mod that "shifts" the speed adjustments from celerity to biomass and make celerity about other movement variables like acceleration and/or air control, so that celerity will allow you to do more erratic movement in combat. This will make the other hive types more intersting to use, because you don't lack the necessary speed to compete with strong marines.

    Read more here: http://www.ensl.org/topics/1707?page=2

    You realize that aliens will stand 0 chance without enough speed at hive 1 vs jetpackers, right? Celerity is mandatory right now to deal with jetpackers.
    ENSLBicsum wrote:
    The lack of cele speed boost should partially be added to every life forms base speed and partially added as increase over time with biomass.

    Currently Celerity adds 0.5 m/s per Spur, so it's 1.5 m/s with 3 Spurs.

    Changed example values:
    Base speed increase: +1 m/s (1.1 m/s w/ bio mass 1) for every life form.
    Gradual increase : +0.1 m/s speed for every bio mass level (0.9 m/s max).

    So, you'll reach current Celerity speed with biomass level 5, but start out with higher skulk speed in the early game. Late game aliens would be faster than in current vanilla, but I don't think that matters too much, as we all know that having biomass level 9 is gg anyway.
  • RevanCoranaRevanCorana Join Date: 2015-08-14 Member: 207125Members
    edited August 2016
    Shift is about "speed and energy", because it has celerity and adrenaline. NS1 used to have silence on MC hive as well. If you want an explanation as to what sound has to do with movement: the movement of your emitted sounds waves is stopped. There you go, you're welcome

    Play nice boys
  • DilligafDilligaf Join Date: 2014-05-25 Member: 196238Members
    Just a thought but would it be better to see the HP bar when a alien is in observation/scan range or when you parasite a marine?
  • FrozenFrozen New York, NY Join Date: 2010-07-02 Member: 72228Members, Constellation
    edited August 2016
    I like silence on shift. And I like shift being the starting hive every game. I'd rather the game be balanced around that then just have 3 shit balances

    In fact if you forced shift first game quality would rise cause you don't have to deal with when you get fucked into shade first
  • .trixX..trixX. Budapest Join Date: 2007-10-11 Member: 62605Members
    Dilligaf wrote: »
    Just a thought but would it be better to see the HP bar when a alien is in observation/scan range or when you parasite a marine?
    According to the devs, the HP bar is not a gameplay mechanic (lol).
    So don't expect any interaction with it by core mechanics.
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    Wait wait wait... They actually said that? So information about enemy HP and how they are situated in terms of healing/feigning is not gameplay...









    Words...
  • DilligafDilligaf Join Date: 2014-05-25 Member: 196238Members
    The game was so much more fun without the HP bar because you could do mind games with opponents running away as if you are almost dead and wait around the corner to kill them instead because you are full health anyway but your movements made them think otherwise (Yes i been manipulating you :wink: )

    And well yeah Lerk is now a flying billboard...

    Nothing will be done with feedback that we know now but gonna leave it here anyway..
  • NeokenNeoken Bruges, Belgium Join Date: 2004-03-20 Member: 27447Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester
    Great idea. While we're at it, what about buffing crag hive by having carapace upgrades reduce the hitboxes to normal size again.
  • The_Welsh_WizardThe_Welsh_Wizard Join Date: 2013-09-10 Member: 188101Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    Neoken wrote: »
    Great idea. While we're at it, what about buffing crag hive by having carapace upgrades reduce the hitboxes to normal size again.

    Electrified floor upgrade for Marine Comm to make unconnected cysts die again?
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    I see no downsides to this idea.
    Although inking can be quite hilarious already. its under appreciated by many khams.
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    I dunno man, this could end up rather cloudy...
  • HEllrunner2kHEllrunner2k Join Date: 2013-07-05 Member: 185945Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited August 2016
    Hey.. lets add some occlusion geometry to the maps .. like bushes or something... and if you stand in them you are cloaked 100%. And let rines carry pre built observatorys in the field to set up ganks. Also cool npcs would be great...like some mini boss fights that give you extra pres. And a vendor in Hub that sells anti grav boots for rines so they can wall climb too...
  • FrozenFrozen New York, NY Join Date: 2010-07-02 Member: 72228Members, Constellation
    Hey.. lets add some occlusion geometry to the maps .. like bushes or something... and if you stand in them you are cloaked 100%. And let rines carry pre built observatorys in the field to set up ganks. Also cool npcs would be great...like some mini boss fights that give you extra pres. And a vendor in Hub that sells anti grav boots for rines so they can wall climb too...

    Honestly, I'd play the mod
  • HEllrunner2kHEllrunner2k Join Date: 2013-07-05 Member: 185945Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Naaah na na... CORE game... we don't do MODS for testing wonky shit at UWE! Never have, never will
  • twilitebluetwiliteblue bug stalker Join Date: 2003-02-04 Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    edited August 2016
    This suggestion came about mainly because I'm under the impression that health bars peek out through Ink, which makes using it reactively to protect aliens quite ineffective.
  • HEllrunner2kHEllrunner2k Join Date: 2013-07-05 Member: 185945Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    What do you do with a new mechanic noone wanted, noone likes, that breaks the game, looks shi.t and negates 5 skills you specificly learend for ns2?
  • BicsumBicsum Join Date: 2012-02-27 Member: 147596Members, Reinforced - Gold
    What do you do with a new mechanic noone wanted, noone likes, that breaks the game, looks shi.t and negates 5 skills you specificly learend for ns2?

    We condone its imperfections, hug it and love it equally as much as other mechanics.

    JK, WE KILL IT! WITH FIRE!
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