Alien Flashlight
konata
Join Date: 2011-08-24 Member: 118296Members
Join Date: 2011-08-24 Member: 118296Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Level the playing frield</div>Link alien flashlight to energy. Make it use it much slower, but not so it's so imba so skulks can forever hide in dark places and just use a red blob on a black background to kill everything. Same with fades who just keep it on to get an easier to see target.
Comments
Take Data Core on Summit for example, when the Alien hive roots itself the room becomes a mess of random building placements, hydras and cysts. Couple that with infestation and the constant dark red lighting it becomes a real eyesore and a mess for killing attacking marines.
Seeing as Aliens need to defend,
and seeing as the areas they defend are constanly without energy,
I'm going to say the flashlight doesn't need a nerf.
Not only that, but I notice it does wonders for my FPS for some reason.
How far the community's come! :.)
The brighter the room and the longer you're exposed to the light, the more disorientating and blurry the flashlight vision becomes. You could couple this with some nice game play mechanics like different mobile lighting sources being used defensively on the marine side. As an example, a group of marines could all use their flashlights to disorient any alien who tries to run at them; it would take multiple marine flashlights to produce any real disorientating affect. Possible Drop lights or glow sticks used as makeshift lighting and to help disorient flashlight vision. Possible flash-bangs used to disorientate aliens hiding in darkrooms with their flashlight on. All this would cost resources of course, but it could really make lighting a dynamic and important part of the game. I know this is all repeated information, but I think it is worth bringing up again.
It helps the skulks “skulk†in dark areas and ambush marines. And it helps the fades pick target then “fade†away.
If the alien flashlight were to reduce energy, fades would not use it because it would prevent them from attacking and hinder their movement (which would only be made worse by flamethrowers).
It does not make much sense to have regular lights and marine flashlights distort the alien flashlight. The aliens are the team which distorts the marine senses with cloaking, the shade, drifter flares, ect. Thus, distorting senses should be something left specifically for the aliens.
So as it stands, it is pretty much balanced.
Perhaps later on, the marines could research some sort of thermal something or other to make themselves invisible (passive, so it's always enabled) to aliens using alien vision.
It's basically like what people did back in the days of half-life to make it 10x easier to play, when people would white wall texture hack and colour their models all one colour. That's something consistency 1 was brought in to reduce. It's a big no no from a competitive view to have this available all the time and any time it's available. It <b>need</b> a down time.
Also, if you include marine invisibility as a tier 2 or tier 3 upgrade, then the alien vision is less effective.
Alien vision does not need a down time. Down time would result in frustrated players who like to swap between the two visions as needed (say... when theyre not in dark areas, or when theyre burning) having to wait 30 seconds between swapping the vision around, or having it use up energy... It would be annoying, people would complain(I'm complaining already!) and it would likely be changed back to the way it was, or modified to something else.
Let's skip the intermediate step and try to get it right the first time.
And mind if I remember everyone that we will probably be able to see spores and flames in the future with the alien flashlight. visible but not making them disorientating. One of the reasons we can't see them now is for balancing.
Though a proper, fluff-friendly counter (if you need one so bad, I'm not actually for one being needed) to me would be a "thumper" (regularly impacting the ground or a speaker of some sort) sort of device that on regular intervals would scrambled the view a bit within it's range (something along the lines of quick bouts of static-like effects and/or quick scan-line like distortion/bending). Another defensive structure taking up more marine space probably isn't really what we need, though, not to mention it feels too much like a symmetrical structure to the shade, which I don't like really either the more I think about it.
But hey, I figured I'd share the thought anyways.
-Flames are invisible, which causes obvious problems for the user
-Spores are invisible, which if only the user could see them, could provide a tactical advantage
-Umbra is invisible, which eventually will also provide a tactical advantage
There's plenty of risk involved with using the flashlight already, and it really doesn't help enough outside of darkness to counter the disadvantages it holds
Steinhauer is right - also you can't judge how dark a room is. Sometimes you think you are really well hidden, when actually you are not.
Perhaps lit rooms should blind aliens.
As for rooms not having power, spores, and umbra, they are non-issues. I guess technically seeing umbra could help, but it's small disadvantage and does not outweigh the gross benefit of having your enemies clearly highlighted.
There are downsides to alien vision this time around, like previously stated. If you remember in build 163, when alien vision was first implemented, people complained that it needed to be BETTER, claiming how it renders you unable to tell the lighting condition in the area, unable to see flamethrower, spore, umbra, and other particle effects, actually made it useless. Yes, those were major discussions, which is why i am surprised that now things have switched, and now people are arguing that it needs a nerf, even though alien vision has not changed one bit for the last 22 patches, literally.
Look back to NS1, the alien flashlight had NO downsides, there was literally no reason to ever not have it on, and people were okay with it, i know i used it all the time, and i was fine with it. All it did was greatly brighten the models of marines, and all structures for that matter. It helped aliens see in the dark, since naturally the aliens SHOULD have superior situation awareness.
There are downsides to alien vision this time around, like previously stated. If you remember in build 163, when alien vision was first implemented, people complained that it needed to be BETTER, claiming how it renders you unable to tell the lighting condition in the area, unable to see flamethrower, spore, umbra, and other particle effects, actually made it useless. Yes, those were major discussions, which is why i am surprised that now things have switched, and now people are arguing that it needs a nerf, even though alien vision has not changed one bit for the last 22 patches, literally.
Look back to NS1, the alien flashlight had NO downsides, there was literally no reason to ever not have it on, and people were okay with it, i know i used it all the time, and i was fine with it. All it did was greatly brighten the models of marines, and all structures for that matter. It helped aliens see in the dark, since naturally the aliens SHOULD have superior situation awareness.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
um yea... what he said.
I was trying to illustrate the point that based on intended usage we can simply poll the player base's activity to find out how much it is being used, and with these numbers we can see if actual usage matches up with intended. I.E. Game balance.
(So yes, I'm quite aware game balance does not always equate to a 50/50 playtime split between two complementary functions)
There are downsides to alien vision this time around, like previously stated. If you remember in build 163, when alien vision was first implemented, people complained that it needed to be BETTER, claiming how it renders you unable to tell the lighting condition in the area, unable to see flamethrower, spore, umbra, and other particle effects, actually made it useless. Yes, those were major discussions, which is why i am surprised that now things have switched, and now people are arguing that it needs a nerf, even though alien vision has not changed one bit for the last 22 patches, literally.
Look back to NS1, the alien flashlight had NO downsides, there was literally no reason to ever not have it on, and people were okay with it, i know i used it all the time, and i was fine with it. All it did was greatly brighten the models of marines, and all structures for that matter. It helped aliens see in the dark, since naturally the aliens SHOULD have superior situation awareness.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed
(So yes, I'm quite aware game balance does not always equate to a 50/50 playtime split between two complementary functions)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My argument wasn't about whether it should be used as precisely intended, as long as it doesn't cause imbalance if it is used in excess. If you were to poll people who to see how long they use alien sight, i honestly bet there would be people who almost never use it, and at the same time people who always/almost always have it on, and of course a few people in between. My previous post was outlining how that is perfectly okay, that its a kind of personal preference specific to different people. I often forget to put alien vision on when the light goes out even when i'm the alien, since seeing in the dark rooms isn't too hard, I know for other people it isn't this way, people who keep it on nearly 24/7 so that they can see better, or they need it on since it slightly improves frame-rate, they have color blindness, or some other eye affliction, neither of which is really justifies calling alien vision an exploit.
I guess an aspect i didn't go in depth about was whether or not marines and aliens should have a level playing field in terms of vision, whether even in well lit rooms, the aliens can still use their vision to spot out marines better, which i feel is perfectly fine. When you think of aliens, you'd imagine they are much more perceptive than humans, we see it in animals all the time, whether they have a much clearer vision, sense of smell, hearing, etc, then yes its makes logical sense that aliens can spot marines easier, even in their own territory, since the drawbacks of using alien vision still apply. From a gameplay standpoimt, you've got to remember this is a game with asymmetrical player classes and teams. Things would be a whole lot different if this were some generic fps like call of duty, if you played on the Spetsnaz team, and you didn't get infrared goggles, but if you happened to be on the Rangers team, and everyone got to have goggles, then yes, that would be a problem. But in NS2, we have 2 teams that are dramatically different in character and play style already. The only time i imagined that alien vision would become too useful, was back in the days of build 163-167, when the only 2 maps available were rockdown and tram, and certain vents in rockdown made sniping for Lerks incredibly easy, since the lerk would see the marines and be able to shoot at them, but the marines couldn't shoot back since the Lerk was too far away to be spotted easily. Things have changed, the Lerk no longer has its sniping ability, and once more, alien vision comes to play a positive game play mechanic, if a Lerk were to quickly flood a room with Spores, which blinded the marines, the Lerk would also be blinded by his own attack, which i imagined would have been a nuisance for people playing Lerk, unless they quickly switched to Alien vision. It makes logical sense, since a spider wouldn't get caught in its own web, a Lerk shouldn't be blinded by his own Spores.
/Rant
I'm just trying to say that the fundamental idea of aliens having superior situation awareness, both in powered, and un-powered rooms, is not really making the playing field uneven, since the two sides are already as different as can be, and we shouldn't try to force people to use Alien vision in a certain way, for a certain period of time, because it wasn't exactly intended to be that way by the Dev's, as long as it doesn't cause any imbalances.
Perfectly put, just about every thought I've had on Alien vision when reading complaints about it over time.
I'd suggest adding distinct colouring to help distinguish friendlies and enemies. Also, the intensity of the shader effect could fade over distance, to help aliens gauge distance. Currently, it is easier to identify marines at long range than those in your face, where they blend with friendly players and structures, making close combat very confusing.