Hydras, is there anything they can't do?
twiliteblue
bug stalker Join Date: 2003-02-04 Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
bug stalker Join Date: 2003-02-04 Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
<div class="IPBDescription">Simple Suggestions for the Hydra</div>While NS2 beta is becoming more and more fun to play over the last 3 months, there are many problems that are choking the enjoyment of testing NS2 right now:
1. Kharaa's lack of effective counter against groups of marines with Shotguns (with medpack shower).
2. Ineffective Kharaa static defenses. Marines can usually sprint past Hydras and Whips, taking little damage, then hit vulnerable alien structures, or simply obliterate the 250HP Hydra in two seconds.
3. Gorges' limited usefulness (especially after marines have tier 2 weapons). The Gorge has very little impact on the game right now. It deals low damage, heals lifeforms slowly, and is easily killed when it tries to heal structures. So spamming Hydras everywhere became the main role for the Gorge.
4. Large number of Hydras create significant server load.
My suggestion is very simple: <!--coloro:#FF8C00--><span style="color:#FF8C00"><!--/coloro--><!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Increase the collision and graphical size of the Hydra (by 100%), as well as its health and cost. <!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
These simple changes can help to improve the above situations.
1. With increased health (500HP), Hydras will survive longer against powerful marine weapons such as Shotguns and Grenades. Most importantly, it will provide Gorges the chance to heal the Hydra, as it will no longer die to focused fire in the blink of an eye.
Consequently, marines attacking Hydras will take more damage from Spores, and Umbra will become more effective on Hydras.
The dramatic health increase is needed by Hydras, in order to survive the extra bullets they take due to increased hitbox size.
2. The aliens will be able to slow marines down with blockades made of larger Hydras that marines cannot jump over, much like the Offense Chamber walls in NS1. The marines would need to kill at least one Hydra to create an opening in the wall, or use the Jetpack (when implemented) to fly over the wall.
Hydras will also provide much the needed cover for smaller lifeforms (Skulk, Gorge and Lerk) against ranged marine weapons.
A new feature may be useful on the Hydra: The ability to flatten/lower (the animation already exists) to allow aliens to pass with the "use" command, or it can perform this automatically (but may increase server processing load).
3. Gorges will have the defensive role of holding strategic locations with Hydras, rather than planting Hydras and abandoning them when marines start appearing. Currently bonsai Hydra gardens offer very little protection, and would be destroyed in seconds anyway. (see problem 1)
4. Larger Hydra size and higher cost will mean the Hydra count and density will be reduced. This is just a convenient side effect of the changes. More changes to the Hydra are needed to discourage Gorges filling the map with Hydras.
I hope my suggestions are logical and viable.
1. Kharaa's lack of effective counter against groups of marines with Shotguns (with medpack shower).
2. Ineffective Kharaa static defenses. Marines can usually sprint past Hydras and Whips, taking little damage, then hit vulnerable alien structures, or simply obliterate the 250HP Hydra in two seconds.
3. Gorges' limited usefulness (especially after marines have tier 2 weapons). The Gorge has very little impact on the game right now. It deals low damage, heals lifeforms slowly, and is easily killed when it tries to heal structures. So spamming Hydras everywhere became the main role for the Gorge.
4. Large number of Hydras create significant server load.
My suggestion is very simple: <!--coloro:#FF8C00--><span style="color:#FF8C00"><!--/coloro--><!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Increase the collision and graphical size of the Hydra (by 100%), as well as its health and cost. <!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
These simple changes can help to improve the above situations.
1. With increased health (500HP), Hydras will survive longer against powerful marine weapons such as Shotguns and Grenades. Most importantly, it will provide Gorges the chance to heal the Hydra, as it will no longer die to focused fire in the blink of an eye.
Consequently, marines attacking Hydras will take more damage from Spores, and Umbra will become more effective on Hydras.
The dramatic health increase is needed by Hydras, in order to survive the extra bullets they take due to increased hitbox size.
2. The aliens will be able to slow marines down with blockades made of larger Hydras that marines cannot jump over, much like the Offense Chamber walls in NS1. The marines would need to kill at least one Hydra to create an opening in the wall, or use the Jetpack (when implemented) to fly over the wall.
Hydras will also provide much the needed cover for smaller lifeforms (Skulk, Gorge and Lerk) against ranged marine weapons.
A new feature may be useful on the Hydra: The ability to flatten/lower (the animation already exists) to allow aliens to pass with the "use" command, or it can perform this automatically (but may increase server processing load).
3. Gorges will have the defensive role of holding strategic locations with Hydras, rather than planting Hydras and abandoning them when marines start appearing. Currently bonsai Hydra gardens offer very little protection, and would be destroyed in seconds anyway. (see problem 1)
4. Larger Hydra size and higher cost will mean the Hydra count and density will be reduced. This is just a convenient side effect of the changes. More changes to the Hydra are needed to discourage Gorges filling the map with Hydras.
I hope my suggestions are logical and viable.
Comments
Also, increasing the cost, although a good idea, does not necessarily limit the spam. Personal resources are abundant.
Let's do some math. First let's assume we've increased the cost of a hydra to 20, to "match" the sentry cost (not true, and you'll soon see why).
You have two fully-upgraded resource towers (5\10 tres\pres per tower per minute), and six players on either side.
Now, let's make the absurd assumption that both teams will commit all of their appropriate resources to static defenses.
After 10 minutes, the marine team has 1*2*5*10 = 100 (team) resources. This is 5 sentries.
After 10 minutes, the alien team has 6*2*10*10 = 1200 (personal) resources. This is 60 hydras.
Uh oh...
Now, as absurd and unrealistic as this situation is, the very fact that the alien team is utilising personal resources and not team resources for static defenses, means that it is in fact more likely for the alien team to buy static defenses than the marine team - and so in fact the hydra/sentry ratio is skewed even further.
In fact, increasing the hydra cost to 20 is already somewhat excessive - increasing it beyond 20 would be ridiculously excessive. If you were to take this into account, the hydra/sentry ratio is skewed even further...
You've also made another assumption: Part of the idea behind limiting the hydra count, is to improve server performance - but the assumption is that server performance will always be so dependent on hydra count, and I hope to God this doesn't remain the case.
I do, however, like the idea of hydras doubling as walls/cover.
Also, I imagine that if a rain of fire, bullets and shrapnel can kill a group of hydras, the gorge is not going to last very long in there; and a smart gorge knows this, so he will still run from his bonsai hydra garden.
The main reason behind the Hydra HP increase is because the enlarged Hydras will be a lot harder to miss, thus taking more damage from Shotguns and Rifles. The current 250 HP Hydra can only survive half a clip of Rifle bullets, or 2 Shotgun shots, as an immobile target, does not much effort to kill at all. The Hydra "wall" needs to be a little tougher than that.
Another source of inspiration for my suggestion is as an alien, I feel extremely vulnerable against Shotguns. There is usually not enough team resource for Whips and Crags to defend against a Shotgun assault (they don't even survive long enough). Marines can usually just march straight into a Hive, killing Skulks and Lerks, as well as Harvesters along the way. Spores can soften the marines, but Medpacks prove to be very cheap counter (15 med packs for the price of 1 Lerk). So I thought the aliens need something to really slow Shotgun Marines down.
2. Ineffective Kharaa static defenses. Marines can usually sprint past Hydras and Whips, taking little damage, then hit vulnerable alien structures, or simply obliterate the 250HP Hydra in two seconds.
3. Gorges' poor combat usefulness (especially after marines have tier 2 weapons).
4. Large number of Hydras create significant server load.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
All of these issues, save for maybe 3, can all be blamed on the engine, which will be fixed in time. The shotgun is not a finished product (in fact not very much is at this point), so basing any suggestion off of that is sort of premature. Kharaa defenses are a bit of a joke right now, I agree, but that is also likely due to the status of the game engine (specifically the hitreg code). The Hydras will be fixed with optimization. Gorges are dependent on Hydras and DI, both of which are largely incomplete.
What you are suggesting might solve some of the immediate gameplay issues, but they don't fix the underlying problems that are causing these gameplay issues to begin with.
I must say this sounds a little more reasonable outside of the previous context. I'm still not sure if it will even be necessary (or goes with UWE's vision), but it sounds reasonable, viable.
I think points 3 and 4 will have an effect on hydra placement, count and maintenance - but not to any great extent. Gorges are still going to run from packin' marines, but they may be more inclined to heal, distract and defend. Personal resources are still going to be abundant, but only applies to players who evolve to gorge.
Also, +1 for being classy and reasonable, twiliteblue.
I'm certain the devs have it on their tracker already. They probably don't have the time for low priority stuffs like that ATM. :(