Hammering out the Lerk's problems
internetexplorer
Join Date: 2011-10-13 Member: 127255Members
Join Date: 2011-10-13 Member: 127255Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Cool opportunities for discussion etc</div>I really like the Lerk. I play it every time I'm on the aliens team, and I try super hard to do awesome stuff with it.
People laugh and say the Lerk is bad, and quite honestly they're right. But that doesn't mean I stop trying! That includes this thread.
First, I'll list what I see as the strengths of the class (from a design perspective, not from the perspective of someone who loves the lerk):
<ol type='1'><li>Role is clearly defined and exists throughout the whole game
You are one player with the weight of 25 mutalisks in Starcraft. Your job is to harass things, fly laps around marines like a strafing fighter plane and spike/gas them to death. Your gas allows teammates to get into combat more safely. You can go anywhere just like a Fade, but with fewer gaps in time where you recharge adrenaline.
</li><li>High skill ceiling and low skill floor on many activities
The lerk's flight is the closest thing in the game to Quake-style bunnyhopping/strafejumping. It's not actually that involved (mechanically), but there is a lot of 'wiggle room' in how you fly. How quickly you get up to speed, how smoothly you turn (and juke peoples' aim/dodge attacks), how you aim while flying, when you glide...these are all things to be developed. You can tell a good lerk player from a bad one by how they fly.</li></ol>
Here are some of the problems I see with the Lerk right now, and some ideas for solving them cleanly:
<ol type='1'><li>Weapon range/spread/damage is difficult to gauge
It's obvious to me that both spike attacks have accuracy spread, but it's not clear how much spread there is. This can be solved by some more obvious graphics on the spikes (like nailguns/plasma in quake), or a crosshair change.
The shotgun attack should not have a 'random' spread - it should be available in a fixed pattern. Please don't make this a server option like in Quake/TF2 - just let the community grow up thinking that a fixed spread is normal (because it should be - especially when we're not dedicated to modelling a realistic SPAS-12 shotgun or whatnot).
</li><li>Damage scales poorly as the game progresses
I'm not sure how to really express this, but it's very obvious every time I play. Of course it gets harder to deal damage because of tech changes, but it *feels* like the upgrade/armor/health values are set against the lerk in some way. If anyone can offer more insight, please do!
</li><li>Spores are not useful enough
Their damage is decent, and so is providing teammates a blind spot to enter combat. However, every time you use gas you have to either drop it away from enemies, or fly into them committing suicide to lay it in its "ideal" spot. The class is clearly geared toward ranged combat (not having a bite attack), so why make it abandon that to use its gas? This creates a situation where your gas and spikes can never safely synergize - if you're in range to lay "really good gas clouds" you're not in the ideal range to be using spikes (you want to shoot spikes at things that cannot easily shoot back and kill you). If you're in ideal spike range, your gas only serves to obscure your own view and waste adrenaline.
</li><li>Spores have an extremely low skill ceiling
When I said they're "not useful enough" I was lying through my teeth. They're actually absurdly good *when they work*. When you manage to fly up to someone and lay gas clouds around them, your team gets a free pass to run in and clean up everything with the greatest of ease. When you try to fly up to someone, and they just kill you instead, it was a wasted effort.
One might try laying gas farther away from enemies (to alleviate this problem) but it's so obvious that it ends up to be a waste in several regards. It 'pushes' you away from combat (because enemies now know where you are, and will see you coming through the clouds with stark visual contrast) if you try to attack. There are very few ways for aliens to 'put a clock' on a combat situation (the way flamethrowers, grenade spam and ARCs do), and laying spores outside their ideal place only makes this worse (by providing enemies an escape routine and extra information about where you are).
I'm sure this has been debated a thousand times, but having gas be fired as a projectile solves most of these problems. I don't want to say "Make it like NS1!" but it's certainly something to consider. Is there a middle ground between the 2 ideas? One thing I came up with in another thread was giving the spore clouds some of the lerk's momentum when they are fired. This would make them drop "where the lerk is" but then move to a desired landing zone over time. It would also tie in with the lerk's flight ability, which is nice and allows players to develop intuition about how it works very quickly.
</li><li>Movement is very predictable
Even though the lerk's movement currently has "the most going on" of the alien classes, it is still extremely limited. This is especially true after the recent patch that lowered the flight speed cap. You can strafe side to side very quickly when you're moving on shallow arcs, and it's nice. However, as soon as you try to make a sharp turn, you lose a lot of speed (because you have to rapidly flap your wings to 'switch' your momentum around). This is, of course, realistic to how a bird's wings would work. However, it is not fun and it is incredibly punishing.
As a flighty harassment character, you should be able to remove yourself from bad situations quickly. If I turn a corner at max speed and end up in the face of an LMG marine, the situation should play out like this:
- I turn around and fly away super quickly
- He tries to shoot at me, but he has to try really hard because I'm a lerk and he's just an LMG
What actually happens is you stop in front of the marine for just long enough that he can kill you extremely easily with his basic gun.
Possible solutions to this: higher speed cap, more air control, play with the pitch up/down caps (so you can fly in vertical loops). With the current map design (with fewer open areas), this problem is the biggest of all.
</li><li>Shotguns are too punishing
Not sure how to articulate this except to say that the shotgun seems way too easy to use against the Lerk. It's 'classic NS' to have shotguns versus lerks, but in this game the predictable movement and locally-dropped spores make it a one-sided matchup. It's also hard to see visually when someone has a shotgun.
Possible solutions to this? Make the shotgun more visually obvious on marines (with a different pose, lighting etc), change the damage cone of the shotgun, add damage falloff (like in TF2) at range
</li><li>The 'shotgun' spike attack has a very low skill ceiling
Is the point of it to "sneak up on someone"? It would work for this purpose (and ONLY this purpose) if I could turn around and fly away quickly after one shot, at the time when any good player should react. I hardly ever use it since b190 because it honestly seems like it relies on the opponent not being able to aim back at me.</li></ol>
Your thoughts?
People laugh and say the Lerk is bad, and quite honestly they're right. But that doesn't mean I stop trying! That includes this thread.
First, I'll list what I see as the strengths of the class (from a design perspective, not from the perspective of someone who loves the lerk):
<ol type='1'><li>Role is clearly defined and exists throughout the whole game
You are one player with the weight of 25 mutalisks in Starcraft. Your job is to harass things, fly laps around marines like a strafing fighter plane and spike/gas them to death. Your gas allows teammates to get into combat more safely. You can go anywhere just like a Fade, but with fewer gaps in time where you recharge adrenaline.
</li><li>High skill ceiling and low skill floor on many activities
The lerk's flight is the closest thing in the game to Quake-style bunnyhopping/strafejumping. It's not actually that involved (mechanically), but there is a lot of 'wiggle room' in how you fly. How quickly you get up to speed, how smoothly you turn (and juke peoples' aim/dodge attacks), how you aim while flying, when you glide...these are all things to be developed. You can tell a good lerk player from a bad one by how they fly.</li></ol>
Here are some of the problems I see with the Lerk right now, and some ideas for solving them cleanly:
<ol type='1'><li>Weapon range/spread/damage is difficult to gauge
It's obvious to me that both spike attacks have accuracy spread, but it's not clear how much spread there is. This can be solved by some more obvious graphics on the spikes (like nailguns/plasma in quake), or a crosshair change.
The shotgun attack should not have a 'random' spread - it should be available in a fixed pattern. Please don't make this a server option like in Quake/TF2 - just let the community grow up thinking that a fixed spread is normal (because it should be - especially when we're not dedicated to modelling a realistic SPAS-12 shotgun or whatnot).
</li><li>Damage scales poorly as the game progresses
I'm not sure how to really express this, but it's very obvious every time I play. Of course it gets harder to deal damage because of tech changes, but it *feels* like the upgrade/armor/health values are set against the lerk in some way. If anyone can offer more insight, please do!
</li><li>Spores are not useful enough
Their damage is decent, and so is providing teammates a blind spot to enter combat. However, every time you use gas you have to either drop it away from enemies, or fly into them committing suicide to lay it in its "ideal" spot. The class is clearly geared toward ranged combat (not having a bite attack), so why make it abandon that to use its gas? This creates a situation where your gas and spikes can never safely synergize - if you're in range to lay "really good gas clouds" you're not in the ideal range to be using spikes (you want to shoot spikes at things that cannot easily shoot back and kill you). If you're in ideal spike range, your gas only serves to obscure your own view and waste adrenaline.
</li><li>Spores have an extremely low skill ceiling
When I said they're "not useful enough" I was lying through my teeth. They're actually absurdly good *when they work*. When you manage to fly up to someone and lay gas clouds around them, your team gets a free pass to run in and clean up everything with the greatest of ease. When you try to fly up to someone, and they just kill you instead, it was a wasted effort.
One might try laying gas farther away from enemies (to alleviate this problem) but it's so obvious that it ends up to be a waste in several regards. It 'pushes' you away from combat (because enemies now know where you are, and will see you coming through the clouds with stark visual contrast) if you try to attack. There are very few ways for aliens to 'put a clock' on a combat situation (the way flamethrowers, grenade spam and ARCs do), and laying spores outside their ideal place only makes this worse (by providing enemies an escape routine and extra information about where you are).
I'm sure this has been debated a thousand times, but having gas be fired as a projectile solves most of these problems. I don't want to say "Make it like NS1!" but it's certainly something to consider. Is there a middle ground between the 2 ideas? One thing I came up with in another thread was giving the spore clouds some of the lerk's momentum when they are fired. This would make them drop "where the lerk is" but then move to a desired landing zone over time. It would also tie in with the lerk's flight ability, which is nice and allows players to develop intuition about how it works very quickly.
</li><li>Movement is very predictable
Even though the lerk's movement currently has "the most going on" of the alien classes, it is still extremely limited. This is especially true after the recent patch that lowered the flight speed cap. You can strafe side to side very quickly when you're moving on shallow arcs, and it's nice. However, as soon as you try to make a sharp turn, you lose a lot of speed (because you have to rapidly flap your wings to 'switch' your momentum around). This is, of course, realistic to how a bird's wings would work. However, it is not fun and it is incredibly punishing.
As a flighty harassment character, you should be able to remove yourself from bad situations quickly. If I turn a corner at max speed and end up in the face of an LMG marine, the situation should play out like this:
- I turn around and fly away super quickly
- He tries to shoot at me, but he has to try really hard because I'm a lerk and he's just an LMG
What actually happens is you stop in front of the marine for just long enough that he can kill you extremely easily with his basic gun.
Possible solutions to this: higher speed cap, more air control, play with the pitch up/down caps (so you can fly in vertical loops). With the current map design (with fewer open areas), this problem is the biggest of all.
</li><li>Shotguns are too punishing
Not sure how to articulate this except to say that the shotgun seems way too easy to use against the Lerk. It's 'classic NS' to have shotguns versus lerks, but in this game the predictable movement and locally-dropped spores make it a one-sided matchup. It's also hard to see visually when someone has a shotgun.
Possible solutions to this? Make the shotgun more visually obvious on marines (with a different pose, lighting etc), change the damage cone of the shotgun, add damage falloff (like in TF2) at range
</li><li>The 'shotgun' spike attack has a very low skill ceiling
Is the point of it to "sneak up on someone"? It would work for this purpose (and ONLY this purpose) if I could turn around and fly away quickly after one shot, at the time when any good player should react. I hardly ever use it since b190 because it honestly seems like it relies on the opponent not being able to aim back at me.</li></ol>
Your thoughts?
Comments
- Go with your suggestion of spores being a projectile that is carried forth through the lerk's momentum.
- Also give spores SOME (but not much) additional forward motion, so gassing a marine directly becomes feasible.
- Have spores be affected by both friction (slows down until stationary) and gravity (settles to the ground), since all targets with the exception of the jetpack will be on the ground.
- Have spores be the Mouse2 ability (i.e. always available to the player). * All aliens should have a unified Mouse2 ability, irrespective of their chosen Mouse1 ability (skulk:leap, gorge:heal, lerk:spore, fade:blink, onos:charge).
Perhaps you may also want to increase the spores' maximum radius.
Regarding damage scaling, it's probably the fact that marines get 40 extra effective HP (20 armour) with every armour upgrade. They start with 160 effective HP and finish with 280 effective HP. Almost double.
Perhaps spores (or some other lerk ability, or even gorge ability) could be re-tooled to eat away at armour (i.e. pretty much the opposite of how it works now), with less damage going to health.
I can fly somewhat better in NS2 but am met certain death smply because i want to master the spores first.
I like point 4. where you call out the benefits and risks of the current system.
i was wondering if maybe the lerk could drop a spore bomb that would have some of his flying momentum.
this would become more of a bombing attack where the lerk would drop then circle out of the area immediately.
it would bring him still close to the action ....yet not so close that every spore is a sacrifice.
I also wondered if nothing was to change that the lerk price point could drop so it becomes a "what the hell?" type investment.
and it would justify more spore runs occuring.
sorry I didn't address all your points...I guess i am not pro enough lerk :-)
There are a few ideas to deal with this:
1) give the lerk more armor and less health. 100 health, 75 armor (carapace would be 100ish armor?) would make it much simpler to fight against pistol wielding marines at long range.
2) give lerks a way to deploy their spore clouds at a distance. This doesn't necessarily have to be the NS1 model, but could be something like a grenade or mine that the lerk could lay. this would reintroduce lerks as effective area denial weapon, in addition to just the normal fly around the map shooting res towers (which is goddamn boring btw).
3) allow lerks to debuff marines in other ways. instead of the pewpewpew machine gun lerk spike, make it shoot 1 spike at a time that applies a stacking dot on a marine that can be cured with a medpack. this would encourage more hit and run gameplay, and help lerks be a sort of rambo-control mechanism.
1) The pistol does heavy damage, last I checked. That means that 1 armour translates directly to 1 health. Have they changed it?
2) The first three points in my post above somewhat address the distance issue: Spores are carried through with the lerk's momentum, have some momentum of their own, and settle from gravity.
3) Not too keen on stacking abilities. Also, not too keen on this idea of rambo-control - a lone player could simply be a team player acting alone. Most apparent with smaller games.
However, I'd still be wary, because
effective HP = minimum(health/(1-0.7), health + armour*modifier)
for light damage, modifier = 4
If health is 100, that means that as long as health + armour*modifier is less than 100/(1-0.7)=333.333 health, the armour will still make a difference, i.e. (333.333-100)/4=58.33325 maximum armour for light damage for armour to have an effect.
True.
@azimaith: Are you on-board with the whole Mouse2 spore thing then?
<img src="http://defendersstore.com/pics/avatars/76561197972113561-full.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
And I was thinking what if Lerks could headbutt marines? (a melee attack for the Lerk) Weapon slot? Impact damage dependent on speed, keeps momentum if marine is killed by it? Finisher attack?
just brain storming here.
<img src="http://defendersstore.com/pics/avatars/76561197972113561-full.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
And I was thinking what if Lerks could headbutt marines? (a melee attack for the Lerk) Weapon slot? Impact damage dependent on speed, keeps momentum if marine is killed by it? Finisher attack?
just brain storming here.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i like that idea actually... it'd be kinda funny to see a lerk divebomb in crevice and knock a marine over or something
The Lerk does not have the durability of a melee fighter. It is a massive target that is a piece of cake for trigger happy shotgunners. For those who play League of Legends, spore trail is almost identical like Singed's poison trail spell. The main difference is, Singed is a tank who can afford to take a lot of damage, and bait enemies into chasing him. While the Lerk in NS2 is not.
If Spore Trail is to be effective, its size would have to be doubled, and its opacity needs to be increased (which was reduced in b191). Only then it would provide sufficient cover for Lerk to snipe from.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->5. Movement is very predictable<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, Lerk did not lose any speed in the last few months. To turn quickly, try strafing in the same direction as you turn when you glide. I agree it is not easy to resume gliding after a fast turn, as the current air acceleration is rather too slow.
As for air control I think it's pretty much maximal right now: your (horizontal) velocity is instantly redirected where you look take without any penalty, right ?
One think I would like to see is a more subtle collision mechanism, now when you hit something you just stop and usually get killed, instead depending how you collision (e.g. your left wing hit something) you could have some kind flight perturbation but don't stop completely, so could escape even if you do a mistake. Doesn't sound easy to implement however..
As for air control I think it's pretty much maximal right now: your (horizontal) velocity is instantly redirected where you look take without any penalty, right ?
One think I would like to see is a more subtle collision mechanism, now when you hit something you just stop and usually get killed, instead depending how you collision (e.g. your left wing hit something) you could have some kind flight perturbation but don't stop completely, so could escape even if you do a mistake. Doesn't sound easy to implement however..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can turn up to 45 degrees every tick (0.03 second) before you stop gliding, which is quite forgiving.
You're right about XZ-plane speed being translated perfectly while gliding. However, that does not use air acceleration. Air acceleration only kicks in once you stop gliding. At 4.0 (per second^2), it is quite feeble.
I just have a comment regarding the spike shotgun:
The way I use it is like the old bite-lerk, as in I fly around in a room, fly by/towards the marine, fire a shotgun and then "flies in a circle" coming back for the next hit - just as you would do with the bite-lerk (fly in, bite, fly away, fly in, bite etc. without ever stop flying in high speed).
I've found this to be not nearly as effective as it was with the old bite and I'm not quite sure how to solve it, perhaps increase the damage of the spike-shotgun quite a bit (to bite-levels) while giving it a longer cooldown? I'm sure someone could think of something better though which would give the same result.
To the people who worked on the current lerk flight model: do you have a youtube video to show how the speed cap/turning issues I'm seeing are not 'real'? (i.e. saying lerk did not lose any speed and so on) If I'm just doing something wrong I would love to know!
<!--quoteo(post=1895509:date=Jan 18 2012, 09:36 AM:name=Zek)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zek @ Jan 18 2012, 09:36 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1895509"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The cropduster spores are way cooler than shooting a projectile IMO, I'd like to see them worked out. Maybe the gas should encompass the Lerk as he flies to make it more difficult to target him? They could use that to justify giving it a pseudo-self-Umbra effect that protects him if needed.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Whether it's cool or not isn't as important as how it scales with player skill and remains fun.
Making the gas stay right on the lerk is even more gimmicky and simple than the current system, and it even adds to the problems that the current system has. When you see gas, where do you shoot to hit the lerk? In the middle of the gas!
As for the "pseudo self-umbra" idea...why doesn't the lerk just GET umbra as a hive 2 or 3 ability in this game? Has anyone ever explained that design decision?
<!--quoteo(post=1895567:date=Jan 18 2012, 02:05 PM:name=PsiWarp)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (PsiWarp @ Jan 18 2012, 02:05 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1895567"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->On the ranged spore, perhaps the crop dusting effect can be kept while the Lerk shoots out 2 streams of gas in front of him Flamethrower-style for visual indication of range?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd be afraid of making it too much of a "visual distraction powerhouse." If these ideas ever see any practical application in the game, I would want the "gas takes on momentum" to be tested with nothing else added on. If you can design a game that's simple at face value, why complicate it to accomplish the same thing? One of the big strengths of NS and NS2 is how well they follow that line of thinking.
As for "gas takes on momentum" I'm pretty sure the Tribes games (and the HL mod Science and Industry) have examples of this in some of their projectiles. Check those out if you want to see what we're talking about.
As for air control I think it's pretty much maximal right now: your (horizontal) velocity is instantly redirected where you look take without any penalty, right ?
One think I would like to see is a more subtle collision mechanism, now when you hit something you just stop and usually get killed, instead depending how you collision (e.g. your left wing hit something) you could have some kind flight perturbation but don't stop completely, so could escape even if you do a mistake. Doesn't sound easy to implement however..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is it possible to have multiple collision boxes, and if so, is it possible to work that into the solution?
<!--quoteo(post=1895639:date=Jan 19 2012, 07:57 AM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Jan 19 2012, 07:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1895639"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If these ideas ever see any practical application in the game, I would want the "gas takes on momentum" to be tested with nothing else added on. If you can design a game that's simple at face value, why complicate it to accomplish the same thing? One of the big strengths of NS and NS2 is how well they follow that line of thinking.
As for "gas takes on momentum" I'm pretty sure the Tribes games (and the HL mod Science and Industry) have examples of this in some of their projectiles. Check those out if you want to see what we're talking about.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I still think it should have SOME forward movement of its own, not a lot, but if you were to, say, sit still on the ground, and fire a spore upward at a 45 degree angle, it would travel a couple metres before hitting the ground.
And yeah, I think spores should be heavier than air (settle due to gravity), since almost all of the lerk's targets will be below him.
Naturally, it wouldn't move as fast as a regular projectile (e.g. bilebomb), because of air resistance and relative density.
Yeah, I would think for 'proper' looking visuals, it would have to be able to get up to the lerk's max speed.
One thing to keep in mind is that releasing gas should not suck away a lot of speed from the lerk (consider that little gas clouds with low pressure are lightweight, nobody wants to slow down for using gas and so on) - the 'taking momentum' should really only mean that it mimics the direction and speed of the lerk when fired
For what it's worth I really hate playing Lurk. One of the main issues is I am completely uncoordinated with his flight movements which make my spore deployment completely useless. I have to fly fairly low to get the spores to work they way they intended which make me an easy target, especially for shotty marines; though typically I'm crashing into a structure and falling in the middle of the fray anyway. :-P
I would definitely like to see the spores shoot out a bit, nothing to extravagant, but at least so your not committing suicide trying to deploy them. Also like what was suggested earlier I think at least the heavier than air deployment is a great idea. They already dissipate at a set interval so I think with gravity based deployment it would open up the ability. If you fly too high the spores would just dissipate and due minimal damage. If you fly low you can do more damage but risk getting blown to pieces. Or you could find the happy medium that would allow proper spore deployment but still make it somewhat hard for marines to shoot you down. I also like the umbra effect while deploying spores; I think this would help as well.
In it's current state is there really any marine that is afraid of a single Lurk? A single Lurk can't do anything it seems except cause a distraction. I've been camouflaged in the corner and waited for 3 marines to pass. Once they were engaged to their font I started shooting spikes at their back and you know what happened? They turned around and blew me to bits and no marine was killed. I'd think a stealthy move like this would at least warrant a single marine kill.... I was only using the normal spikes, but still.
Groups should be afraid if the lerk has backup, since gas can make fights so childishly easy for the aliens.
I think it's more fun too. And I don't understand why you guys think projectile spores scale better with player skill, that was probably the easiest thing there was to do in all of NS1. Using crop dusters effectively requires real mastery of the flight model.
What, if anything, does the current spore weapon have to do with "long range support"?
It forces you to go into close range where you are inherently weak, in order to deploy it where it can be effective. If you deploy it at longer ranges it shows people where you are for free while obscuring your own vision.
How do I support at long range when half my spikes miss from 20 feet away?
Having projectile spores doesn't make "camping and spamming spikes" a viable strategy. A good marine will still kill you in a second with his pistol and shrug off the gas damage (if any). In fact, a camping player is probably better off with the cropduster spores because they can dedicate less effort to looking backward at enemies while fleeing (and they don't have to look down to put gas on themselves and obscure vision). A mechanic that's easier for a camping player and offers nothing to a highly dedicated player is not a good one!
<!--quoteo(post=1896986:date=Jan 23 2012, 09:58 PM:name=Zek)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zek @ Jan 23 2012, 09:58 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1896986"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think it's more fun too. And I don't understand why you guys think projectile spores scale better with player skill, that was probably the easiest thing there was to do in all of NS1. Using crop dusters effectively requires real mastery of the flight model.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Mastery of the flight model doesn't help the fundamental idea that you have to put yourself where the shotgun counters you extremely effectively. You often have to use spores that way because placing them anywhere else is useless.
With projectile spores, you still fly the same way and you can still place spores in all the same places (by looking at the ground), but you can also do more than that. That's how it scales with player skill better than a mechanic that literally boils down to "hold down left click and hope marines can't aim"
It's important to separate what's actually skill-indexed and what is artificially difficult.
With projectile spores, you still fly the same way and you can still place spores in all the same places (by looking at the ground), but you can also do more than that. That's how it scales with player skill better than a mechanic that literally boils down to "hold down left click and hope marines can't aim"
It's important to separate what's actually skill-indexed and what is artificially difficult.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Everything about the old spores was easier. You never had to get close, you were either spamming it from complete safety or flying above them and spamming it from only relative safety. The aiming part was never hard at all, the skill cap was just extremely low. Frankly all the cool skill stuff that people liked doing with NS1 Lerk involved Bite which was a very similar playstyle to this.
As far as balance is concerned(i.e. Lerks not able to lay spores because it's too dangerous) that's something balancing can work out. They can be made more durable if necessary, or the spore radius can be made larger, spore damage can be increased for better area denial, etc. That's why I say we should start with the cool concept and balance the gameplay around it.
If you balance them the other way around (for grouping/spiking) and make them die from 1 shotgun shot (like in NS1), the spores get useless again because you cannot ever dare going into close combat with a marine (at least one with fairly good aim).
In NS1, both weapons were useful at the same time, albeit the spores more so than the bite, but it was possible to fly in and quickly kill someone, especially when you had other aliens around.
It could be possible to reach balance with the current model, but it is a <b>very</b> fine line in my opinion.