Individual vs. communal upgrades

Moleculor · February 2002

<div class="IPBDescription">How should the aliens work?</div>Ok, Flayra has recently stated that the aliens will be building buildings to upgrade themselves, rather than individually evolved upgrades. His original text follows:
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Up until recently, the aliens all upgraded themselves individually. This makes for overall less strategy though, because the enemy would never have a specific strategy to deal with, because the alien team would have no coherence in their upgrades. Now, the alien builders create structurs that grant team-wide upgrades.</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Which do you prefer?

(NOTE: This poll may or may not have any effect on the actual end gameplay style! Everyone might vote for 'No', and the Aliens will -still- have communal upgrades. Then again, Flayra might change his mind. You never know.)

cyberdaemon · February 2002

there should be a builngs wich allow aliens to more evolv but some choices makes alien itself - thats better that way cos then u can make ur own strategy and make ur playn more effective - cos some players are better snipers others are better on other things - cos everybody got theyr own talent

ChromeAngel · February 2002

Communal upgrades obviously suit the style of the current playtesters (the development team).

I prefered it when the aliens where a bit more varied and free ranging.

The_Fragmaster · February 2002

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (cyberdaemon @ Feb. 14 2002,11:35)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">there should be a builngs wich allow aliens to more evolv but some choices makes alien itself - thats better that way cos then u can make ur own strategy and make ur playn more effective - cos some players are better snipers others are better on other things - cos everybody got theyr own talent</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
I like this idea.

On a different note, maybe you could add a slight RPG element to the alien classes? I was thinking something like a certain amount of points that every player gets before spawning to put into their character. When buildings are upgraded, each player gets more points and more options to put into their characters. That way you still have the consistency of the building upgrades (certain buildings would only allow certain upgrades) and the versatility of letting individual players choose which of the available upgrades to focus on.

pielemuis · February 2002

bah i'm sure this communal upgrades are for the best, Flayra knows what's best for us, as he tested the game.

badmofo · February 2002

i think individual was better...made a much bigger difference than the marines and ALSO made it apparent that aliens don't have the same communication network that marines do.

cyberdaemon · February 2002

individual is better cos if i wanna be some sort of fast moving alien and my friend wanna be strong and slow one and someone want to be medium cos that alien type is special
and then how is that be ? then is that story that - only one of those 3 can be play perfectly cos others doesnt have a egnought good tactical skills for other types of aliens
its same that u r forced to be sniper or scout or whatever who u dont want to be

neag · February 2002

Some key upgrades should be communal. Like cloaing.
Bbut the rest of the upgrades like regeneration should be individual.

Greedo · February 2002

As far as I'm concerned, an alien should be able to survive and evolve on his own. This has always been one of the sticking points of this mod. As for communal upgrades and such, perhaps some buildings that could speed up evolution, or something along those lines, but an alien should not be dependent on another alien in order to evolve.

Huan · February 2002

I wrote a DAMN LONG POST about this on the "Question- can the aliens give themselves personnal" thread, check it <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'>

Scythe · February 2002

What about communial buildings that unlock individual evoultion options? Like if there is one hive, the aliens can only evolve tier 1 abilities, if there are two hives... and so on. Maby this is the way it currently works?

--Scythe--
the_only_scythe@yahoo.co.uk

Moleculor · February 2002

Actually, that's similar to the way part of it works. The other part is that all the other abilities that once could be upgraded at whim are now upgraded by the level 2 only.

Scythe · February 2002

Lemmie see if I understand. As more hives come online, Pudgy can build different structures that enable different abilities for the aliens? Or do the structures only ALLOW the player to manually chose to upgrade? I would preffer the second one.

--Scythe--
the_only_scythe@yahoo.co.uk

Greedo · February 2002

From what I understand of the way hives effect the aliens, it's somewhat different than the builder being able to build different buildings. It was explained before with the level three alien, and it's something like this. When there is only one hive "online," the flyer gets his standard attacks (I believe this goes for zero hives as well). When there are two hives, it gets a projectile dart. And when there are three hives, it becomes a homing dart. When one of the three hives is destroyed, the flyer loses the homing ability. When one of the two hives is destroyed, the flyer loses the projectile. Now, I may be a bit confused, so don't quote me on the homing ability (I know that the level three does get some kind of projectile weapon, though). Also, these upgrades, or downgrades, will instantaneous apply to all aliens (of course, the different levels will have different upgrades due to the hive numbers).

Fluorescentduck · February 2002

Wow, I don't like <i>that</i> idea at all.

Hooray for individual upgrades! Boo for communal upgrades!

Gasfiend · February 2002

hmm, i'm not sure i have strong feelings one way or another on this issue. On one hand, we can throw out team play and allow players to pursue their own self interests at their own paces by allowing individual evolutions. On the ohter hand, we can have a community that tells us whats best for us and choses the upgrades that it deems will be more useful to us in the long run...hmmm, i dunno, i like both options, though truthfully i can't vote either way as i like the eccentric notion of having someone choose how we will play for us, on the other hand, i like choosing for myself...decisions decisions......i guess i'll go for a midground, let us have both!
Evolutions involving what class of alien we are should be up to us, at the appropriate times of course, though massive evolutions such as.....poison filled talons, should be up to the commander/hive master dude. Alternativley, the builder aliens could construct stuff that allows for evolutions...errr....right, another two cents contributed by me, though i get the feeling its less than two cents...
Gasfiend,
Oh, and i can't get a vash the stampede picture as my avatar, i'm ###### off, he's awesome, but no site has a viable picture thingy for me to put as my avatar...grrr!!!

Moleculor · February 2002

Ack! Individual advancement Vs. the communal good! I've started a debate on Democracy Vs. Socialism!

cyberdaemon · February 2002

jep , its sounds like that

Biomechanoid · February 2002

I was under the impression that there were class specific upgrades that were automatically made according to the number of strcutures that were active, but there were also other upgrades like faster movement, more armour, higher immunity to fire, longer jumps, etc. , that the individual player could invest their resource points on to customize their alien more to their style of playing

Moleculor · February 2002

That's the way it used to be. Now there are class specific upgrades that you get based on the number of hives active, and then there are other upgrades you get when the Class 2 builder builds the building for the upgrade.

Gasfiend · February 2002

just watch, Natural Selection will henceforth be known as a mod for commies....grrrr, dirty anti-capitalist commies

Lazarus · February 2002

yeah, those commies can go to that smelly place that im not going to descripe any more, but anyway I know its late to say that but GJ about that westwood-trip-class-stuff, it shows that NS is a quality mod wich deserves respect!

amen...

Biomechanoid · February 2002

I'd hate to say this, but I'd make a horrible fatty. I'd be more concerned with setting up traps in "odd" places to boost my kills (afterall the aliens are all about indivdual kills) than building structures for my teammates (they are competing with me for the most frags after all...) <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'>

Moleculor · February 2002

Heh... I just realized I'd have the same problem. I'd be -way- too focused on trying to set up really cool traps and maintain them to build upgrade buildings for my team. Shoot, doing upgrade buildings would probably end up being -boring-... You've gotta hang around and wait for RP to come in, then build a building, then wait some more... then build...

Which brings up another question... what's the point of other aliens having individual RP, if they're not going to be using it? Or will their kills boost the hive's RP? Would these communal upgrades mean that the hive will be more team oriented than previously planned? Will the builders just be pulling on a communal RP pool just like the marines? Will the builder just be a watered down version of the commander, placing buildings, but unable to give orders or have the cool view?

Ech, I'm beginning to scare myself. I'm -sure- it won't end up this way.

MonsieurEvil · February 2002

Yes Molec, all of the really cool and smart ideas have been thrown out. And the teams are exactly the same. And there are no longer any aliens. And we now have hostages. The team has become completely retarded all the sudden.

Thanks for starting a nice panicked rumour. Sigh.

Blahman · February 2002

molec is now fired. I will be the new namer-of-bob.

cyberdaemon · February 2002

what u mean fired ? not in team anymore ? and communal upgrades are like communism , dont give a f about individualy skills of every player - its like playn TFC with one class only - so why not to choose every player what type they wanna be - cos im forced to leave this server where someone upgrades strenght and armor only cos i wanna move fast not to be supper-strenght-alien-nr-1

Crim0nKing · February 2002

If you guys have ever played <a href="http://www.planethalflife.com/si" target="_blank">Science and Industry</a> I think it would be cool if we could have a vote system on the upgrades for the aliens. (No buildings). The more resources (or whatever, I'm not exactly clear on the resource system for this game) the faster you get the upgrade. Just an idea...

P.S. Been following boards for sometime, just decided to sign up now. Thanks :-P

Lazarus · February 2002

dont know, I once played SI a lot and there were always some noobs that voted what they thought sound cool wile it was kind of junk or un-nesesery, got pretty sick of that (that was tho not why i stoped playing SI), but I think its better then nothing, caus I think the aliens need something more strategist (like voting system), just thinking of it as the aliens were either "rush n´kill" or "camp n´kill" wile the marines were making some cool plan or somthing (wich I think is more fun)

Trane · February 2002

A good question brought up here is who is going to want to be the builder alien besides to set traps?? Is anyone actually going to be interested in building up communal upgrade building and stuff?

Shuvit_Viper · February 2002

building traps, building turrets, maybe even some healing points (?), repairing the hive (? - i think the hive cannot be 'repaired' or regrown or something, once they get damage it can't be undone) repairing the other structures...

the builder is the one that organises the defence of the aliens.

-

to get bot, i think they are both interesting, a combination. The communitial upgrade is cool:
+the better the aliens fight, they get awarded,
-but this could have a negative effect, certainly if it is time-based. The marines are probably having problems destroying the aliens, and the more the game lasts, the better they get. This could mean a game ends with a god-like alien squad, meaning the marines have to be quick as possible, while they have to be slow, carefully 'camp-frogging' along, building defence before they attack. Then the marines will almost almost have to rush, while the alien team can 'camp' near the hive, just waiting and getting better...

but the individual is cool too:
+more varied aliens (certainly if every different individual upgraded alien is a little bit different in look (a bit more blue, some tentacles growing out of his cheeks etc.)
+you get to choose what you want to be as alien, if you don't like to be heavy-armored you become faster, and vice versa.
+The better you play, the better you get. If aliens get rps by killing marines, the best ones can evolve more and better then the noobies. The good players get awarded.
-The better you play, the better you get. Noobies who don't play it a long time will sooner dislike the game, because the other players get better then them, and they can't upgrade, going into a endless spiral, the others get better and the noobie cannot upgrade because of no rps, since the others kill all the marines.

I would like to see both, because they both have some good and bad stuff... i think 50-50 divided. But the communal upgrades should be not really important, otherwise the aliens will be raped in the beginning and owning in the end. I think they are at all times equal to the marines, but in the beginning A BIT smaller and weaker, and at the end A BIT tougher.

Individual vs. communal upgrades

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