Ideas for Revisions/ Additions to Gameplay

Kama_Blue

<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Updated for Revision 200*
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<!--coloro:#FFC0CB--><span style="color:#FFC0CB"><!--/coloro--><i>--Just a general assortment of ideas i personally feel may be beneficial, or i've heard others comment on in a general round of NS2--</i><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

<b>ITT: Pick and Choose your favorites, comment on ones you like and ones you don't! If you have any good ideas i would love to throw them up here too!</b>



<!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->
<b>
-Marines-</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->

<!--coloro:#F4A460--><span style="color:#F4A460"><!--/coloro-->
General<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

- Add a Similar Respawn function to Aliens, Allowing you to choose place to spawn, and spawn when pressing Mouse:1
-- Including interface hints/queues (like aliens currently have)

<!--coloro:#708090--><span style="color:#708090"><!--/coloro-->
Commander<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
- Allow Marines to Electrify Res / Power Nodes
- Allow an "Overload" option on Power Nodes, blowing them up but doing electrical damage to all nearby aliens.

- Add a Delay, Visual Effect and Sound to "Recycling" Via commander (20 Seconds like NS1), preventing skilled commanders from just recycling res nodes aliens are chomping on.
-- Maybe allow an option to "Cancel" recycling as well, this could solve new commanders recycle griefing, as the new commander could Undo it.



<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro-->Weapons<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
- Add a Zoom Feature to the Rifle
-- Place "Laser" graphic on zoomed rifles, instead of pistols.

-Increase Shotgun spread (No More Shotgun Snipers!)

- Make the Axe look cooler (Energy/Electrical type weapon possibly)
-- Increase Axe damage done to Alien Players (Not Structures)

- Prevent rifles from being dropped within 10-20 feet of an Armory.
- Allow Marines running over dropped weapons to automatically pick up ammunition without swapping guns (They're clips, not built in!)

- Seriously Increase "Personal Friendly Fire" From the Flamethrower (No more spray and pray at your own feet please)





<!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>-Aliens-</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->

<!--coloro:#F5DEB3--><span style="color:#F5DEB3"><!--/coloro-->Commander<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->


<!--coloro:#9ACD32--><span style="color:#9ACD32"><!--/coloro-->General<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

- Make it more Visually and Audibly Apparent YOUR alien form is taking damage (Sounds seem distant, few graphical cues)

-Add an overlay like NS1, that shows all active hive health pools
-- Also, allow players to see the health values of "In Progress" Hives, currently only a % complete shows.

- Revamp Eggs/Hatching System to spawn aliens in small clusters (2-3) Instead of 1 at a time.
-- Possible egg reserve system/ect, not intended to increase or decrease spawn times, just to spawn aliens in a clutch instead of single hatchlings.
--- Intended to counteract marine rushes, where respawns trail one by one to death."


<!--coloro:#FF8C00--><span style="color:#FF8C00"><!--/coloro-->*Gorge*<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

<!--coloro:#98FB98--><span style="color:#98FB98"><!--/coloro-->-Give Back Bile Bomb!<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

- Add a Score Component for Gorges Building Cysts/Hydras
- Allow Gorges to Recycle Personal Cysts

- Allow Gorges to Build Res Nodes
-- Possibly grant that gorge a personal res income bonus for as long as that node is active. (1.1 - 1.2 Res per tick, as opposed to 1.0 from that node)

- Look into Reducing Gorge building costs later into the game. (Gorge buildings quickly becomes less and less valuable as grenades, grenade launchers, jetpacks and flamethrowers come into play).
-- Possibly as simple as "Hydras cost 2 res less to build for each additional active hive"

- Look into scaling gorge structure strength with number of hives
- Look into applying a Gorge's personal upgrades to buildings created (Carapace, Cloaking, Regen, Frenzy, Swarm)

- Some Kind of Upgrade that Refunds Gorges partially for destroyed Hydras/Cysts.

-Show "Orange Bubble" around hydras when targeting them as gorge, showing max firing distance. (Think TF2 Sentry type Overlay on Ground/Walls)
-Show "Green Bubble" around cysts when choosing placement area, showing creep range.



<!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->*Skulk*<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
- Increase Skulks durability VS Marines (As of Rev 200*)


<!--coloro:#2E8B57--><span style="color:#2E8B57"><!--/coloro-->Onos<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
- Reduce or Remove chance of "Flinging Marines" with main attack (currently it's just mean, and laggy, and more annoying to the onos than good)
-- Replace with a knockback, that leaves marines standing, possibly with a slow.

- Look into stuttering movement speed issues
- Reduce Carapace regeneration rate with regen (It's too high, you barely have to retreat)


<!--coloro:#DDA0DD--><span style="color:#DDA0DD"><!--/coloro-->*Lerk*<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

- Remove Bile Bomb!
-- Increase Spike Damage VS Buildings instead? (Spikes already do 1% per second to buildings?)

-Make Spores vision obscuring again, instead of transparent
-- These spores added a great element of team play, where the lerk would dive bomb and/or zoom in with spores to assist/cover up the actions of other aliens. Without obscuring vision they become far less valuable as a team asset.


<b>*Alien Sight *</b>

-Add a Slight Dark/Lightness Gradient to make light/dark areas apparent. (Very Important for Hiding/Tracking Enemies)

-Add Graphical Representation in Alien Sight for Flamethrowers (Orange Heat)
-Add Graphical Representation in Alien Sight for Umbra (Possibly Blue Transparent Clouds?)
-Add Graphical Representation in Alien Sight for Explosions (Orange Explosions)

- Possibly Add Fading Orange/Heat "Footsteps" For 15-30 Seconds after a Marine or Alien has walked across an Area (Shade Upgrade?)
- Show recent Bullet Holes (from 1-2 minutes ago) as heat spots on terrain.
- Show recent Grenade Explosions (from 1-2 minutes ago) as heat spots on terrain.

TimMc

<!--quoteo(post=1912569:date=Mar 13 2012, 09:09 AM:name=Kama_Blue)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kama_Blue @ Mar 13 2012, 09:09 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1912569"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->- Add a Slight "Auto Tracking" feature to the Pistol, when used in areas under the influence of an Observatory or Ping (when you can see Blue Alien Circles)

<b>lolnope.jpg</b>

- Add a Zoom Feature to the Rifle

<b>Would prefer this to rifle butting.</b>

- Allow Marines to Electrify Res / Power Nodes

<b>This is an old NS1 thing. Might be ok, but I prefer the shields. Perhaps the shields could deal damage when applied to structures?</b>

- Allow an "Overload" option on Power Nodes, blowing them up but doing electrical damage to all nearby aliens.

<b>Maybe but should give audible warning a second before, and no res return.</b>

- Add a Delay, Visual Effect and Sound to "Recycling" Via commander, preventing skilled commanders from just recycling res nodes aliens are chomping on.
-- Maybe allow an option to "Cancel" recycling as well, this could solve new commanders recycle griefing, as the new commander could Undo it.

<b>Commanders already can cancel recycle iirc. Aliens tend to chomp, so commanders will instantly start a recycle and then cancel if aliens are killed. Need to remove ability to cancel it imo.</b>

- Allow Marines to Purchase "Deployable Turrets" At Armory. (15 Res Possibly, Less Powerful than Com Turret)

<b>No.</b>

- Add a Similar Respawn function to Aliens, Allowing you to choose place to spawn, and spawn when pressing Mouse:1

<b>Fairly sure marines already have this, but could be wrong.</b>

- Make it more Visually and Audibly Apparent YOUR alien form is taking damage (Sounds seem distant, few graphical cues)

<b>Would be nice, currently your alien moans but usually its too late to be useful.</b>

- Make Mature Whip "Bombard" ability automatic, targeting marines in visual range.

<b>Can argue this reduces alien comms skill, but it always annoyed me that I needed to assign all of my whips.</b>

- Remove Drifter Requirement for Whip, Increase Res Cost. <i>(Defending hives impedes expansion speed drastically at the moment)</i>

<b>No drifters are required for all construction. I think this is fine.</b>

- Allow Alien Commander to Use "Personal Res" for Hydras without getting out of the Hive. (As if they were a Gorge)

<b>Would be nice, but marine commanders have no way to use personal res either. At least alien comm has option of getting out for a second to build hydras.</b>

- Add a Score Component for Gorges Building Cysts/Hydras

<b>What?</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Ryne

TimMc:

You say marine commander has no way of using PRes.... I believe he can drop weapons via armory that use his PRes

Kalabalana

Medpacks and Ammo packs cost pres, along with weapons. I often find myself with 0 res when I command. Using pres for tres would mess up the balance of the game, since each player starts with 25, and can just cycle through command and buy whatever.

No auto-aim please.

The electrify mechanic was essentially replaced with nano shield. But maybe the obs or proto lab can in mid-late game research nano-shield to do damage reflection, or to simply have the electrification feature.

Power nodes are going to continue undergoing revisions I believe, they've drastically changed in functionality before, and prob will again. I'd also rather any and all damage done to aliens is exclusively the result of offensive weapons, and structures exclusively designed for that purpose, at least in the early game.

Respawning revisions are on the way.

Alien damage indication seems to only become apparent at low life, and on getting hit. It needs to be more representative of your health and armor in some manner in the medium health range.

Whips are powerful, the drifter cost makes sense imo, and also keeps alien structure building cohesive.

I don't like the idea of gorges recycling personal cysts, but I do like the idea of points coming in for cyst placement. Since it's a passive structure it showed be scored accordingly. Off the top of my head, maybe if we could use the average cyst life time as some baseline, assign maybe 5 points to that, and divide that up into single time periods. So maybe every minute, a gorge placed mini-cyst gives that gorge 1 point. Also, that gorge gets a point possibly when a structure is placed on on his cyst's infestation, and when an alien fully heals himself on that infestation. Now that I think of it, alien commander should prob have a similar score system in a similar regard. (currently scoring for both the marine and alien commander isn't just bad, it's pretty much broken)

The alien vision issue has been around forever, and nobody's really made good suggestions for it from my perspective. But if I had to throw a unique idea out there: why not make alien vision a scalable alien upgrade from shade? Fits the game model, and balances the feature.


Anyways, nice post, it got my interest.

Kama_Blue

Added some more ideas to the top post, as well as responses to some replies here.

@TimMc
- Shields are already really powerful, electrify would be seperate
- Res Node Recycle takes like 2 seconds currently
- Rines can't respawn same as aliens

@Kalabalana
- Alien commander should have something worth pres that can be dropped
- Electrify would be expensive, for use on things like Nodes close to base.
- Alien Vision isn't a powerful advantage and is most useful on Skulk, which means making it an upgrade would negate its value. (Additionally it would harm aliens for breaking power nodes or using umbra/spores)
- Scoring should be based simply on structures built, there's no need to "Pay out Points" for how long they last, unless it's a res node or something.

Anticept

<!--quoteo(post=1912569:date=Mar 13 2012, 10:09 AM:name=Kama_Blue)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kama_Blue @ Mar 13 2012, 10:09 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1912569"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->*<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->- Allow Leaping Skulks to "Grapple" jetpackers if leap hits within half a second of use, possibly trajectory force backward/to ground doing damage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

So basically now I'm being leg-humped midair by a mutant dog with swords for arms? Yikes.

Kalabalana

<!--quoteo(post=1912796:date=Mar 14 2012, 01:08 AM:name=Kama_Blue)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kama_Blue @ Mar 14 2012, 01:08 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1912796"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->- Alien Vision isn't a powerful advantage and is most useful on Skulk, which means making it an upgrade would negate its value. (Additionally it would harm aliens for breaking power nodes or using umbra/spores)
- Scoring should be based simply on structures built, there's no need to "Pay out Points" for how long they last, unless it's a res node or something.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Alien vision is very powerful advantage, if you know, you know. (Flamers seem to be the only drawback)

As far as scoring goes, ideally a scoring system fairly rewards players for better play. You want to reward a gorge who helps his team with the cysts getting more res towers and map control, over a gorge who simply spams cysts in spawn. Another thought came to mind, cyst scoring should reflect whether the cyst is expanding alien infestation reach or not. So you would get more of a reward for extending/protecting/reconnecting a cyst chain, rather than less useful cyst placement. In addition, dropping a cyst so it's infestation saves unconnected structures should also get notice.

Kama_Blue

<!--quoteo(post=1912929:date=Mar 14 2012, 10:42 AM:name=Kalabalana)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kalabalana @ Mar 14 2012, 10:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1912929"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Alien vision is very powerful advantage, if you know, you know. (Flamers seem to be the only drawback)

As far as scoring goes, ideally a scoring system fairly rewards players for better play. You want to reward a gorge who helps his team with the cysts getting more res towers and map control, over a gorge who simply spams cysts in spawn. Another thought came to mind, cyst scoring should reflect whether the cyst is expanding alien infestation reach or not. So you would get more of a reward for extending/protecting/reconnecting a cyst chain, rather than less useful cyst placement. In addition, dropping a cyst so it's infestation saves unconnected structures should also get notice.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Unless you're stretching for some kind of reason scoring is changing gameplay, gorges who sit in spawn spamming cysts and get a high score because of it aren't gaining anything but fancy numbers on the scoreboard, and probably aren't interested in playing the game anyway.

I wouldn't design a mechanic around people who don't want to play a game. From a coding standpoint, it's simply easier to let those silly cyst-spamming gorges have the points, rather than come up with some obtuse and esoteric scoring system based on arbitrary and hard to measure values in a game.

Most gorges put cysts in good places, and hydras in good places. Let us assume they have good intentions and move along with that. The Point-Per-Structure system worked fine in NS1.


& About Alien vision, it's great and all, but it's the core mechanic of the Alien team almost. Marines fight to keep the lights on, aliens fight to turn them off.

But Alien vision not showing light/dark areas hurts them badly, not showing flamers is worse, grenades is even worse and it becomes a nice advantage sometimes, but other times you have to admit you were totally killed because you were running around with it on.

Kama_Blue

Updated, for Revision 200*