The Shade and early game domination
rantology
Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
Hi. 2-3 year NS1 vet and long time forum lurker. :P I really like the beta right now but there is one thing that strikes me as a potential balance issue.
The Shade is too cost beneficial for Aliens in early game. In most games I don't see Aliens going Shade Hive for the Veil/camouflage upgrade, but for the actual Shade which is vastly superior for two reasons- 1. - It requires only 10 rez (vs 30-40 for 2-3 veils and the Camo upgrade) and 2. It enables skulks to cloak for a reasonably long period of time and to run at full speed while 100% cloaked. This problem is compounded when Aliens and Marines spawn relatively close to each other on the map (within 3 bases of each other) because it allows the Alien team to skulk rush all the way to the Marine base while fully cloaked. It's extremely difficult to expand as Marines when fighting Shade skulks, and if you manage to survive the initial onslaught of cloaked-skulk rushing you're often left too far behind and will be fighting tier 2 alien tech while still on 1-2 RTs with basic upgrades.
I realize there are potential counters to this, but I don't think they are as effective. Mines can work but the Aliens can wall-walk around them...but the main counter to Shade tech is the Observatory. But while the Alien commander can keep the Shade perma-cloaked for minutes at a time with no consequence, the Marine commander must constantly scan areas to expose the cloaked skulks and it's possible to run out of energy on the Obs, or worse- to be unable to Distress Beacon.
As for solutions- I'd like to see the Shade become more tactical and less of a giant early game cushion/"Iwin" button for Aliens. There are a few solutions I think would improve Shade play-
A) Leave the cloaking effect of the Shade untouched- but reduce the duration that the shade will cloak things around it to like maybe 10-15 seconds. This will still let Aliens cloak their buildings/players for extended periods of time but once they are damaged/forced out of cloak they need to be re-cloaked by the Alien commander, as opposed to clicking it once every minute or two and essentially letting players spam full run speed cloaks. This would bring the shade more to the same level of the Observatory in terms of energy consumption and give the Alien commander more to do (something I think is needed). I think this solution is best.
B) Change cloaked aliens to be very very faintly visible in some way. Maybe the slightest shadow, or an extremely faint yellow glow from their eyes. This would be similar to the period in NS1 where you could very faintly see cloaked aliens. This will add risk when charging full speed into a group of marines and change the mentality from "I'm Shade cloaked, time to go find a free kill!" to "I can be extra sneaky here, where is the best place I can flank/sneak up on?"
C) Other weird ideas. Reduce the runspeed on Shade cloaked aliens. Or reduce the range at which they can travel fully cloaked to be leashed somewhat closer to the Shade. I dunno. I'm sure there are other ideas out there.
TL;DR: Shade is too powerful and too cost beneficial to Aliens in early game (esp on small maps). A lot of reward for little risk.
The Shade is too cost beneficial for Aliens in early game. In most games I don't see Aliens going Shade Hive for the Veil/camouflage upgrade, but for the actual Shade which is vastly superior for two reasons- 1. - It requires only 10 rez (vs 30-40 for 2-3 veils and the Camo upgrade) and 2. It enables skulks to cloak for a reasonably long period of time and to run at full speed while 100% cloaked. This problem is compounded when Aliens and Marines spawn relatively close to each other on the map (within 3 bases of each other) because it allows the Alien team to skulk rush all the way to the Marine base while fully cloaked. It's extremely difficult to expand as Marines when fighting Shade skulks, and if you manage to survive the initial onslaught of cloaked-skulk rushing you're often left too far behind and will be fighting tier 2 alien tech while still on 1-2 RTs with basic upgrades.
I realize there are potential counters to this, but I don't think they are as effective. Mines can work but the Aliens can wall-walk around them...but the main counter to Shade tech is the Observatory. But while the Alien commander can keep the Shade perma-cloaked for minutes at a time with no consequence, the Marine commander must constantly scan areas to expose the cloaked skulks and it's possible to run out of energy on the Obs, or worse- to be unable to Distress Beacon.
As for solutions- I'd like to see the Shade become more tactical and less of a giant early game cushion/"Iwin" button for Aliens. There are a few solutions I think would improve Shade play-
A) Leave the cloaking effect of the Shade untouched- but reduce the duration that the shade will cloak things around it to like maybe 10-15 seconds. This will still let Aliens cloak their buildings/players for extended periods of time but once they are damaged/forced out of cloak they need to be re-cloaked by the Alien commander, as opposed to clicking it once every minute or two and essentially letting players spam full run speed cloaks. This would bring the shade more to the same level of the Observatory in terms of energy consumption and give the Alien commander more to do (something I think is needed). I think this solution is best.
B) Change cloaked aliens to be very very faintly visible in some way. Maybe the slightest shadow, or an extremely faint yellow glow from their eyes. This would be similar to the period in NS1 where you could very faintly see cloaked aliens. This will add risk when charging full speed into a group of marines and change the mentality from "I'm Shade cloaked, time to go find a free kill!" to "I can be extra sneaky here, where is the best place I can flank/sneak up on?"
C) Other weird ideas. Reduce the runspeed on Shade cloaked aliens. Or reduce the range at which they can travel fully cloaked to be leashed somewhat closer to the Shade. I dunno. I'm sure there are other ideas out there.
TL;DR: Shade is too powerful and too cost beneficial to Aliens in early game (esp on small maps). A lot of reward for little risk.
Comments
No, it is simply too overpowered.
I think the camouflague upgrade should be the only way to become invisible as an alien.
Only structures should be affected by Shade Cloak, and it should not override scan.
I don't think it would make the shade useless, depending on how much such a visor would cost, but I find it very hard to predict such things.
+1. Marines could use something to help them see through lerk gas clouds etc. Of course you could make the cloaked enemies still hard to see even with the thermo, but it should be at least of some use in dark areas etc.
I feel like sound direction isn't pronounced enough in NS2. You can hear a cloaked skulk easily, but it's very hard to pinpoint it by audio alone. You have to take a lot of lucky guesses to hit it by accident. I remember doing this in Quake-games and some Source games (L4D, shooting infested through walls with the sniper) because it was quite easy to pinpoint the enemies based on audio cues. This could help with cloaked enemies.
But that aside, the cloak does need a bit of a nerf bat.
--Cory
nice, this reminds me of <a href="http://www.hidden-source.com/media/ingame/IRIS_Members_12.jpg" target="_blank">Hidden: Source</a>.
How do you get to the shade?
You just walk past all the invisible aliens, and hope they run past you as well?
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Cool! Will more veils make you get camouflaged faster soon too? Right now there is no noticeable difference between having one or 3 veils. For some reason people keep getting 3 out of habit though...
I miss the proximity based shade/sc cloaking and the proximity based decloak with the obs.
A cool thing would be having passive disorientate around cloaked aliens, with a much shorter radius. So the marines could get the feeling that they're not alone. Cloaked aliens would have to be quicker or the marines would call in a scan.
An annoyance with the commander activated cloak ability, is that I'm spawning, or maybe gonna gorge around the base.
And BAM!
<a href="http://imgur.com/Zh4Yp" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/Zh4Ypl.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
Flashbanged by the commander.
You just walk past all the invisible aliens, and hope they run past you as well?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
properly supported push with shotties and usage of nano shield can go a long way. the thing about cloaked aliens is that after the initial attack they have 0 lasting power.
In a dark hallway?
Or pitchblack room where the power just went out.
DEAR GOD YES. FLASHLIGHTS WILL HAVE A MORE IMPORTANT PURPOSE.
and if they were smaller and longer... my god that would be scary as ######.
SORTA LIKE THIS.
<img src="http://i43.tinypic.com/2dwddg5.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
I really need to take smaller pictures.