Unified infestation mechanics
Rokiyo
A.K.A. .::FeX::. Revenge Join Date: 2002-10-10 Member: 1471Members, Constellation
A.K.A. .::FeX::. Revenge Join Date: 2002-10-10 Member: 1471Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Whips, gorges and pustules, oh my!</div>Alrighty... So... We seem to be slowly progressing towards a common visual theme here.
Gorges have their orange glowing belly, pustules look like they're going to be orange glowing sacks of goo, and likewise the concept art for whip bombs look like they'll also be orange goo-sacks. We're rolling with a pretty consistent visual theme here and I'm starting to entertain the thought of the underlying mechanics being unified to match the appearance.
There has already been talk of gorges & pustules exploding on death, spraying out infestation. Gorges will soon have an infestation spray, which will corrode armor and heal aliens, and keep structures fed... So why not have that be the way all infestation abilities work?
The whip's bombard ability could literally launch a goo-sack of infestation, instantly creating a large temporary patch of infestation, and providing a burst of damage/healing to whatever it hits.
Any infestation patches on the ground could have very slowly continue having the same effect. Any alien player or structure standing on infestation is very slowly healed. Any marine player or structure standing on infestation has their armor very slowly corroded away (the idea being that getting splashed in acid is far more harmful than standing on a shallow puddle of it).
This gives a very general and over-arching theme of infestation being good for all alien players, and bad for all marine players, since everyone is directly affected by it in some way. All aliens then have direct incentive to paint the map in green goo (Portal 2 style!), with all marines feeling a very direct need to clean it all up. Likewise, with the whip's bombard becoming such a versatile ability, the commander now has some strong tools for interacting with the infestation, healing players and attacking enemy structures.
As an aside, it also makes me personally far more comfortable with the idea of destructible pustules, because if infestation does become such an interactive mechanic for players on the ground, then it makes sense for that interaction to be 2 way.
Gorges have their orange glowing belly, pustules look like they're going to be orange glowing sacks of goo, and likewise the concept art for whip bombs look like they'll also be orange goo-sacks. We're rolling with a pretty consistent visual theme here and I'm starting to entertain the thought of the underlying mechanics being unified to match the appearance.
There has already been talk of gorges & pustules exploding on death, spraying out infestation. Gorges will soon have an infestation spray, which will corrode armor and heal aliens, and keep structures fed... So why not have that be the way all infestation abilities work?
The whip's bombard ability could literally launch a goo-sack of infestation, instantly creating a large temporary patch of infestation, and providing a burst of damage/healing to whatever it hits.
Any infestation patches on the ground could have very slowly continue having the same effect. Any alien player or structure standing on infestation is very slowly healed. Any marine player or structure standing on infestation has their armor very slowly corroded away (the idea being that getting splashed in acid is far more harmful than standing on a shallow puddle of it).
This gives a very general and over-arching theme of infestation being good for all alien players, and bad for all marine players, since everyone is directly affected by it in some way. All aliens then have direct incentive to paint the map in green goo (Portal 2 style!), with all marines feeling a very direct need to clean it all up. Likewise, with the whip's bombard becoming such a versatile ability, the commander now has some strong tools for interacting with the infestation, healing players and attacking enemy structures.
As an aside, it also makes me personally far more comfortable with the idea of destructible pustules, because if infestation does become such an interactive mechanic for players on the ground, then it makes sense for that interaction to be 2 way.
Comments
I'm a bit dissapointed in the pustules, i always wanted to kill the infestation by pusching it back in realtime, not just killing the "building" where it came from.
it would be much better (for performance) to keep infestating completely passive, created by the pustules. then you only need to know when the pustule has been created (for newly connected clients) or when i was destroyed and its age at destruction time (if there is still creep receeding).
that would result in much less traffic and serverside computation time.
but i like the current system much more, since it feels more natural (manually receeding creep with flamethrower, manually generating it)