Personaly i believe depending on how it is implemented this idea could be slightly overpowering, however if it's implemented correctly i see no harm in it. The most sensible thing to replace in my mind would be paralize. That way an onos hord cannot simply run into a room full of marines, paralize them, and then feast like it's all you can eat day in McDonalds. Then again i'm judging all of this by how the game is in the current version, im sure many things will have changed in 1.1 so it might not be so overpowering after all. Look forward to seeing how 1.1 turns out <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> keep up the good work flayra.
Imagine this: standing in the middle of a wide hallway with Cloak Lv3, and you see a HA Marine Rambo coming along, all alone. He runs into you, and, being blind, says "WTH L@G?" Then you devour him...I love this new attack. I don't onos often, and lerk is my passion, but I hear they're getting some upgrades too. Whenever something like 1.1 happens, something new, something mysterious, I get all crazy about it. This is no exception. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> Thank you dev team, thank you EVERYBODY for playing NS and not some other mod that rarely gets any dev team attention because they're too busy thinking about how popular the mod is!
how about when a onos devour a marine, it moves a tad slower, now what's a good idea <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'><b>Solution to console KILL with Devour:</b></span> (sorry if this was already mention)
Ok, so there's got to be a fixed rate at which health drains while in an Onos stomach... Simply do a quick test when a Marine dies to see if they are inside an Onos stomach. THEN, calculate a spawn delay based on the "health drain" rate inside the a stomach and how much health they had when they died!
Here's a quick example in case that didnt make sense:
Marine gets devoured with 100 health. Lets say the health drain rate inside an Onos is 1hp/sec, that means the Marine has (hypothetically) 100 seconds inside the stomach. Now, let's say the Marine types "kill" when he still has 50hp left. Code-wise you do a quick calc "50hp * 1hp/sec = 50sec" and then continue that countdown for that Marine. Only when that countdown is completed, shove the Marine into the respawn cue.
So you can wait it out or type kill, but either way you have the same amount of time to wait before you are put back into the respawn cue, therefore maintaining the whole point of devour as well as staying away from disabling kill, which from what I understand is a huge HL built in command that could be hard to mess with... Win win!
Not only that but the side effect of typing kill would be to emtpy the ono's stomach so he could go eat some more! A fitting punishment for cowardly tactics. TBH though I think it's best we leave this to the devs to sort out.
Im gonna love this ability <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> what if when devoured the ono receives health as if he had regen, and if the marine manages to plant at least 3 mines inside he can use them to kill him and the Ono?
I beleive paralyzed should be removed it should be JP > Onos JP < Fades
<!--QuoteBegin--Snidely+Feb 25 2003, 03:10 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Snidely @ Feb 25 2003, 03:10 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Forgive me if I missed this...
What happens when a marine is being devoured, but the Onos (having cunningly gone for the redemption upgrade) redeems instead of dies? Level three redemption is very effective for the upper level Kharaa at the moment, so chances are he'll survive.
I reckon that if the Onos redeems, the marine should be freed. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I don't know if you actually looked at the description for redemption, but if you read it, it says:
"This ability won't be activated with the level 5 'behemoth' alien"
As for the other stuff: I find it amusing that you people are actually thinking of balancing the Onos. Face it, if the aliens have 3 hives, it's game over anyways. Sure, a comeback is possible, but it'd have to take a really skilled team to pull it off. Then there are those whingers who think Primal Scream is overpowered, so it should be replaced with 'Devour'.
In all seriousness, I think 'Paralyze' will be replaced; nobody uses it. Sure, you use it, anecdotal evidence is the best kind of evidence! I've used it too, it sucks.
Paralyze is possibly one of my favorite attacks. It handily brings jetbos to their knees and enables one of the most embarassing kills possible; the forced telefrag. Just paralyze a guy as he spawns. Wait 8 seconds and splat!
Oh, and the redeeming onos thing was a limitation in the first release. It has since been fixed. Sadly the manual has not been updated.
Dopple - I brought that up (I think in an equivilent thread in the Sug&Ideas forum), but was told that that was out of date: it was only because there used to be a bug with a redeeming Onos. It got stuck in the floor, or something. However, before release, it was solved; the manual/tooltips didn't get updated, though. So as far as I know, redeeming Onos will be in 1.1 as well.
Onos has well, he has a hole on his rear end, lol, how about when onos eats somone with a gun, he erm doesnt eat it, but it goes out of his rear and drops on the floor, - the ammo of course, and onos shouldnt be able to attack while eating a marine, possibly as an easter egg, say when you eat a marine, his skeleton comes out of onos rear end or a few bones, running along as onos, out pops 200+ bones, ehehehehehe
Noooooo, dont replace paralyze! It has great use and power. (I don't see a great number of sieges used, but that doesn't mean they don't have their place.)
Primal Scream is more of a 'team' attack, and we all know how team oriented the aliens are.
But keep paralyze! It brings down those jetpackers, holds in place those annoying running snacks, and makes sure you don't scrap your charge. It doesn't prevent firing, but then again, it's not like they're gonna live long enough to fire.
I use paralyze, it's habit now. Para, horn, para, charge, para, horn, horn the IPs...
I believe that a marine with tripmines should be able to hurt the onos while being digested. One tripmine should only do maybe 1/5 of the ono's max health damage and seriously hurt the marine, but a marine should be able to blow the onos away, even at the expense of his own life.
<!--QuoteBegin--DumbMarine+Feb 25 2003, 08:47 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DumbMarine @ Feb 25 2003, 08:47 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Noooooo, dont replace paralyze! It has great use and power. (I don't see a great number of sieges used, but that doesn't mean they don't have their place.)
Primal Scream is more of a 'team' attack, and we all know how team oriented the aliens are.
But keep paralyze! It brings down those jetpackers, holds in place those annoying running snacks, and makes sure you don't scrap your charge. It doesn't prevent firing, but then again, it's not like they're gonna live long enough to fire.
I use paralyze, it's habit now. Para, horn, para, charge, para, horn, horn the IPs... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Sieges are used too much IMHO. I've seen HA/HMG/JP/Welder guys running around and sieging our hives.. WTH? Sieges should only fire at structures that are NOT hives. make the marines go in and kill the hives themselves and not camp in a friggin' vent, aye? Yeah, and this would also fix the double siege point in PROCESSING on HERA.
Aliens have a limit of like 8 chambers of each.. yet marines can use any amount of turrets they desire on a TF... and turrets are more accurate, shoot faster, and are easily mass-produced during early game.
i have a small request, can somebody tell me what pages flayra posted on (no way in hell i'm reading all them <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> )
<!--QuoteBegin--Surge+Feb 23 2003, 11:53 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Surge @ Feb 23 2003, 11:53 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Charge isn't exactly the most useful of abilities when fighting against buildings <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> OMG You SUCK with charge then. An onos with adren can take out a CC with ONE use of charge. IMO it may replace primal scream. It's a pretty major attack (worthy of 3 hive status) with the power to turn the tide if the marines are somehow repelling you. (Say with grenades or something... Swallow the grenader and run off.) Primal Scream was a bit overpowered if your aliens work together. (I'm surprised that anyone can beat marines as aliens if you DONT work together, though I do love that onos-powered uzi-lerk) You NEED paralyze to fight jetpackers. (ROFL, I was an onos in the viaduct hive and the JP was flying around shooting me. I paralyzed him and he fell to his death.)
Edit:
For those suggesting they take out no-hive level weapons and replace them with PRIMAL SCREAM and DEVOUR, you have your balance issues worse off than most of the people on here.
Jetpacks cost 6 resources while an Onos costs 70, that's a lot of res you have to regain. If a single jetpack, costing a max of 32 resources if he has an HMG, can take you out THAT'S unbalanced. JPs are hard enough to kill as it is. A lucky acid rocket, leap, or constant Lerk pelting is the only, and still questionable way to kill them.
In the end they will take out what they take out, there's no use speculating.
Like all things, there should be a way to counter devour. Here are 2 suggestions (Use one or both, though only one would keep the balance):
1. Have mines with you. You don't even have to plant it. Just having one on you is sufficent. After being digested, the mines interact with the stomach acid and explode. Hell, one mine should be enough. You see, you've bypassed the Onos' outer caraprace, leaving you with a lot of very vital organs. Thus, one mine should take it down from the inside. I personally would love to see an Onos swallow a light, then your whole team laughs when it explodes 10 seconds later from mines.
2.HA marines take a long time to swallow, and the Onos must stand still while doing so. Maybe 4-5 seconds? Anyway, other marines can use this to their advantage, as the Onos cannot move or attack, making devour only useful against lights or Rambo HAs. An excellent way to prevent "chomp-and-run" attacks.
Those who say "it's the onos' only defense against JPs!" should think about this. NS is a TEAM BASED game. Making the Onos able to kill everything cancels that. So, the Onos should have a Fade or Lerk or some other alien to help him, that way the Onos has a weakness and it's too freakin powerful as it is. Paralysis counters JPs. Take it out and the Onos has a weakness.
Devour isn't so bad really. What it should do is lower the Onos speed, shouldn't be able to jump, and charge is slowed down a bit but still accessable.
Lerks should be able to carry skulks (think dive bombing....), gorgs, and quite possibly Fades if they put their back into it. All a Lerk has to do is stand on top of another alien and "use" the alien to grab it and then he can carry him around and the alien being carried can hit "use" to drop whenever he/she wants to.
Marines should be able to carry two pistols <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> ... j/k .....
Since when have aliens been stressed to work as a team? Sure, team helps, but usually aliens go rambo and if they meet up, so much the better. Excepting the lerk's umbras, none of the alien attacks are 'support' attacks. (ok, and primal scream, although if you have primal scream, its over anyway.)
Now the marines work as a team, yes.
Paralyze is a part of the onos now. Arr. It's like leap is to skulk. <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tiny.gif'><!--endemo-->
(btw, the last time I saw a siege cannon employed was in a clan match. Rarely do public games have sieges, as usually games end up as "you have 2 hives" or "teh uber-n00bs yell0rz at y0u f0r sux0ring.")
Forum mods have 'requested' that all I post this on an existing relevant thread so I'm copying this here to be lost in the spam. Replies for and against the issues I raise are appreciated in the hopes that Devour as a skill will be implemented in a balanced form.
=========================================================================== Just read through half the 1.1 teaser thread and while most of the alien players are enthusiastic about the proposed change I see a couple really big balance issues.
1) An onos would have the ability to completely negate the res invested in one marine, making any weapon or armor he has go to waste (16-50+ res). Heavy armor and/or weapons are currently the only counter to onos and assuming the the marines are facing a 3-hive assault, their res flow is more than likely going to be a trickle. So the marines are going to have to scrimp and save for that one ha/hmg set only to have the onos devour the marine who picks it up.
2) I didn't see any mention of the Onos excreting a half-digested shotgun or welder in the teaser post. At least have the devoured marine drop his weapon so a teammate can pick it up and "attempt" to use it to free him.
3) There should be some drawback to using Devour even if it's as simple as reduced movement speed or allowing the devoured marine to knife (since he dropped his weapon when he was devoured).
4) The devoured marine has to have something to do even if it's only knifing the onos for reduced damage or sharing vision with the onos. Being devoured and digested in utter darkness over for a minute or more with no available recourse is NOT fun and will only give less enthusiastic marines another reason to F4 once that third hive comes online (which is essentially what devour would do anyways - remove a marine from play).
5) Devour and L3 Redemption would mean that it would be nigh impossible to save your teammate or his equipment. If the Onos is redeemed it should spit out the devoured marine before returning to the hive.
6) If providing the opportunity to make a comeback is a balance concern, Devour would be extremely difficult to overcome especially in the face of multiple onos who can devour a portion of the team and then trample the remaining marines. Fighting onos, marines would have to rely on LA/LMG marines unless they wanted to risk the onos devouring their HA marines. I'd suggest that Devour work only on light armor marines for balance.
Paralyze+Charge = dead marine. Doesn't matter if he's HA or LA. Devour = slim possibility of life.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Being devoured and digested in utter darkness over for a minute or more with no available recourse is NOT fun<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Read the post, check the time.
Edit: To make it easy. <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->it effectively removes the player from play for a short time (30 seconds max)<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good point Ahnteis, why use devour, when you can paralyse and either Charge, or even gore marines to certain death, as opposed to devour one, who may be rescued. Id rather not take the chance at getting killed by devouring, and just paralyse and gore/charge the marines. Even If I were to meet up with one incredibly stupid Heavy armour all alone, Id probably opt to Paralyse-Gore him. Devour would only benefit a situation like a welder rush. Where you cant damage enough to kill them, but a simple Paralyse charge would still be effective (Your dishing out more damage that is healed)
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
edited February 2003
Devour is functionally identical to Gore, with two exceptions: 1) There's no damage being dealt. You just click, and eat him. 2) You keep him out of the respawn queue for as long as 30 seconds. People who say Paralyze + Gore is better than Paralyze + Devour aren't thinking straight.
Regarding people saying that Devour needs a counter: it does have a counter - the SAME counter that the Kodo Beast's "Devour" ability has in Warcraft 3. That is, kill the Onos before the marine digests, and he pops back out a little slimey, with all his gear.
you cant just kill an onos before he devours you. it doesnt work that way. i think this is one of the best ideas so far, well the only idea released.... but now the onos is actually useful. does it work with HA too? the onos may actually be WORTH the 70 res. right now its not too worth it.
I should be more clear. Yes, it removes 1 marine from respawn. However, it doesn't slow the rate at which the rest of the team respawns.
Because of this, and the fact that the onos can already take down any one target, devour is marginally more useful then existing capabilities. Yes, it's better, but not so much better as to warrant the screams of huge imbalance. This will *not* be a huge game altering change. It will mostly be just another fun alien event in the endgame. (Like xenocide or letting the gorgie kill the comm.)
"Ah.... Well.... I <i>could</i> follow that waypoint commander... but I'm gonna have to ask the onos first <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> "
if onos are availible in a normal sized game there's usually 4-5 onos people. well if they all use devour thats 4-5 marines. bam. but if there is a new feature there may be 6-7 onos, thats 6-7 marines, maybe 3/4 of the team. that is very very useful, once the first onos chews and swallos the marine and uses his tooth pick to clean out his teeth, he can run over and kill the spawn portals. but then again, thats not very affective since 6-7 onos wins. no contest. i think it will be used for kiling the last run away marine, the one that the commander gives a JP and says go go save the team but he gets devoured. hahah.
Comments
(sorry if this was already mention)
Ok, so there's got to be a fixed rate at which health drains while in an Onos stomach...
Simply do a quick test when a Marine dies to see if they are inside an Onos stomach.
THEN, calculate a spawn delay based on the "health drain" rate inside the a stomach and how much health they had when they died!
Here's a quick example in case that didnt make sense:
Marine gets devoured with 100 health. Lets say the health drain rate inside an Onos is 1hp/sec, that means the Marine has (hypothetically) 100 seconds inside the stomach. Now, let's say the Marine types "kill" when he still has 50hp left. Code-wise you do a quick calc "50hp * 1hp/sec = 50sec" and then continue that countdown for that Marine. Only when that countdown is completed, shove the Marine into the respawn cue.
So you can wait it out or type kill, but either way you have the same amount of time to wait before you are put back into the respawn cue, therefore maintaining the whole point of devour as well as staying away from disabling kill, which from what I understand is a huge HL built in command that could be hard to mess with... Win win!
I beleive paralyzed should be removed it should be
JP > Onos
JP < Fades
Devour them.
What happens when a marine is being devoured, but the Onos (having cunningly gone for the redemption upgrade) redeems instead of dies? Level three redemption is very effective for the upper level Kharaa at the moment, so chances are he'll survive.
I reckon that if the Onos redeems, the marine should be freed. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't know if you actually looked at the description for redemption, but if you read it, it says:
"This ability won't be activated with the level 5 'behemoth' alien"
As for the other stuff: I find it amusing that you people are actually thinking of balancing the Onos. Face it, if the aliens have 3 hives, it's game over anyways. Sure, a comeback is possible, but it'd have to take a really skilled team to pull it off. Then there are those whingers who think Primal Scream is overpowered, so it should be replaced with 'Devour'.
In all seriousness, I think 'Paralyze' will be replaced; nobody uses it. Sure, you use it, anecdotal evidence is the best kind of evidence! I've used it too, it sucks.
Oh, and the redeeming onos thing was a limitation in the first release. It has since been fixed. Sadly the manual has not been updated.
Prosp
Onos has well, he has a hole on his rear end, lol, how about when onos eats somone with a gun, he erm doesnt eat it, but it goes out of his rear and drops on the floor, - the ammo of course, and onos shouldnt be able to attack while eating a marine, possibly as an easter egg, say when you eat a marine, his skeleton comes out of onos rear end or a few bones, running along as onos, out pops 200+ bones, ehehehehehe
- What if, on an sv_cheats 1 test server, an onos eats a marine with godmode enabled?
Primal Scream is more of a 'team' attack, and we all know how team oriented the aliens are.
But keep paralyze! It brings down those jetpackers, holds in place those annoying running snacks, and makes sure you don't scrap your charge. It doesn't prevent firing, but then again, it's not like they're gonna live long enough to fire.
I use paralyze, it's habit now. Para, horn, para, charge, para, horn, horn the IPs...
Primal Scream is more of a 'team' attack, and we all know how team oriented the aliens are.
But keep paralyze! It brings down those jetpackers, holds in place those annoying running snacks, and makes sure you don't scrap your charge. It doesn't prevent firing, but then again, it's not like they're gonna live long enough to fire.
I use paralyze, it's habit now. Para, horn, para, charge, para, horn, horn the IPs... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sieges are used too much IMHO. I've seen HA/HMG/JP/Welder guys running around and sieging our hives..
WTH? Sieges should only fire at structures that are NOT hives. make the marines go in and kill the hives themselves and not camp in a friggin' vent, aye?
Yeah, and this would also fix the double siege point in PROCESSING on HERA.
Aliens have a limit of like 8 chambers of each.. yet marines can use any amount of turrets they desire on a TF... and turrets are more accurate, shoot faster, and are easily mass-produced during early game.
Meh: So attack our hives yourselves
OMG You SUCK with charge then. An onos with adren can take out a CC with ONE use of charge. IMO it may replace primal scream. It's a pretty major attack (worthy of 3 hive status) with the power to turn the tide if the marines are somehow repelling you. (Say with grenades or something... Swallow the grenader and run off.) Primal Scream was a bit overpowered if your aliens work together. (I'm surprised that anyone can beat marines as aliens if you DONT work together, though I do love that onos-powered uzi-lerk) You NEED paralyze to fight jetpackers. (ROFL, I was an onos in the viaduct hive and the JP was flying around shooting me. I paralyzed him and he fell to his death.)
Edit:
For those suggesting they take out no-hive level weapons and replace them with PRIMAL SCREAM and DEVOUR, you have your balance issues worse off than most of the people on here.
Jetpacks cost 6 resources while an Onos costs 70, that's a lot of res you have to regain. If a single jetpack, costing a max of 32 resources if he has an HMG, can take you out THAT'S unbalanced. JPs are hard enough to kill as it is. A lucky acid rocket, leap, or constant Lerk pelting is the only, and still questionable way to kill them.
In the end they will take out what they take out, there's no use speculating.
1. Have mines with you. You don't even have to plant it. Just having one on you is sufficent. After being digested, the mines interact with the stomach acid and explode. Hell, one mine should be enough. You see, you've bypassed the Onos' outer caraprace, leaving you with a lot of very vital organs. Thus, one mine should take it down from the inside. I personally would love to see an Onos swallow a light, then your whole team laughs when it explodes 10 seconds later from mines.
2.HA marines take a long time to swallow, and the Onos must stand still while doing so. Maybe 4-5 seconds? Anyway, other marines can use this to their advantage, as the Onos cannot move or attack, making devour only useful against lights or Rambo HAs. An excellent way to prevent "chomp-and-run" attacks.
Those who say "it's the onos' only defense against JPs!" should think about this. NS is a TEAM BASED game. Making the Onos able to kill everything cancels that. So, the Onos should have a Fade or Lerk or some other alien to help him, that way the Onos has a weakness and it's too freakin powerful as it is. Paralysis counters JPs. Take it out and the Onos has a weakness.
Devour isn't so bad really. What it should do is lower the Onos speed, shouldn't be able to jump, and charge is slowed down a bit but still accessable.
Lerks should be able to carry skulks (think dive bombing....), gorgs, and quite possibly Fades if they put their back into it. All a Lerk has to do is stand on top of another alien and "use" the alien to grab it and then he can carry him around and the alien being carried can hit "use" to drop whenever he/she wants to.
Marines should be able to carry two pistols <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> ... j/k .....
Now the marines work as a team, yes.
Paralyze is a part of the onos now. Arr. It's like leap is to skulk. <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tiny.gif'><!--endemo-->
(btw, the last time I saw a siege cannon employed was in a clan match. Rarely do public games have sieges, as usually games end up as "you have 2 hives" or "teh uber-n00bs yell0rz at y0u f0r sux0ring.")
===========================================================================
Just read through half the 1.1 teaser thread and while most of the alien players are enthusiastic about the proposed change I see a couple really big balance issues.
1) An onos would have the ability to completely negate the res invested in one marine, making any weapon or armor he has go to waste (16-50+ res). Heavy armor and/or weapons are currently the only counter to onos and assuming the the marines are facing a 3-hive assault, their res flow is more than likely going to be a trickle. So the marines are going to have to scrimp and save for that one ha/hmg set only to have the onos devour the marine who picks it up.
2) I didn't see any mention of the Onos excreting a half-digested shotgun or welder in the teaser post. At least have the devoured marine drop his weapon so a teammate can pick it up and "attempt" to use it to free him.
3) There should be some drawback to using Devour even if it's as simple as reduced movement speed or allowing the devoured marine to knife (since he dropped his weapon when he was devoured).
4) The devoured marine has to have something to do even if it's only knifing the onos for reduced damage or sharing vision with the onos. Being devoured and digested in utter darkness over for a minute or more with no available recourse is NOT fun and will only give less enthusiastic marines another reason to F4 once that third hive comes online (which is essentially what devour would do anyways - remove a marine from play).
5) Devour and L3 Redemption would mean that it would be nigh impossible to save your teammate or his equipment. If the Onos is redeemed it should spit out the devoured marine before returning to the hive.
6) If providing the opportunity to make a comeback is a balance concern, Devour would be extremely difficult to overcome especially in the face of multiple onos who can devour a portion of the team and then trample the remaining marines. Fighting onos, marines would have to rely on LA/LMG marines unless they wanted to risk the onos devouring their HA marines. I'd suggest that Devour work only on light armor marines for balance.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Being devoured and digested in utter darkness over for a minute or more with no available recourse is NOT fun<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Read the post, check the time.
Edit: To make it easy.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->it effectively removes the player from play for a short time (30 seconds max)<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
1) There's no damage being dealt. You just click, and eat him.
2) You keep him out of the respawn queue for as long as 30 seconds.
People who say Paralyze + Gore is better than Paralyze + Devour aren't thinking straight.
Regarding people saying that Devour needs a counter: it does have a counter - the SAME counter that the Kodo Beast's "Devour" ability has in Warcraft 3. That is, kill the Onos before the marine digests, and he pops back out a little slimey, with all his gear.
Yes, it removes 1 marine from respawn. However, it doesn't slow the rate at which the rest of the team respawns.
Because of this, and the fact that the onos can already take down any one target, devour is marginally more useful then existing capabilities. Yes, it's better, but not so much better as to warrant the screams of huge imbalance. This will *not* be a huge game altering change. It will mostly be just another fun alien event in the endgame. (Like xenocide or letting the gorgie kill the comm.)
Edit for grammar.