Make Cysts invisible
Pampelmuse
Join Date: 2005-04-06 Member: 47641Members
Join Date: 2005-04-06 Member: 47641Members
<div class="IPBDescription">and the reasons why</div>Please make cysts invisible after an initial "build time" of maybe 2 seconds.
They should only become visible when being <b>scanned</b>, in reach of an <b>obs</b> or when they are <b>damaged</b>.
<u><b>Reason 1:</b></u>
it adds a bit more of "skill" gameplay:
- the marines who have to figure out where the cysts might be planted, by watching the creep spread and guessing its center point.
- the alien comms who can save their cysts by carefully planting them,
- the gorge's cysts make more sense since they can even use harder-to-find spots at the ceiling and at the wall.
<u><b>Reason 2:</b></u>
Alien comm can decide whether to be greedy with cyst placement or he can do it the safe, slower way:
By putting the cysts as far away from another as possible its obviously faster, but you can easily spot single patches of creep.
Once you decide to tighten up the placement of cysts, your goo carpet overlaps and its harder to spot the cysts without the scan, or...
<u><b>Reason 3:</b></u>
Give the Flamethrower more use as it can easily spot cysts with hits AoE damage. This helps him fill out a bigger niche in the marine weaponry.
<u><b>Downsides:</b></u>
Marines will maybe struggle even more with this change, but i think that the current imbalance between kharaa and tsa is not related to cyst gameplay and should be handled by tweaking other elements of the game (hi exosuit!).
They should only become visible when being <b>scanned</b>, in reach of an <b>obs</b> or when they are <b>damaged</b>.
<u><b>Reason 1:</b></u>
it adds a bit more of "skill" gameplay:
- the marines who have to figure out where the cysts might be planted, by watching the creep spread and guessing its center point.
- the alien comms who can save their cysts by carefully planting them,
- the gorge's cysts make more sense since they can even use harder-to-find spots at the ceiling and at the wall.
<u><b>Reason 2:</b></u>
Alien comm can decide whether to be greedy with cyst placement or he can do it the safe, slower way:
By putting the cysts as far away from another as possible its obviously faster, but you can easily spot single patches of creep.
Once you decide to tighten up the placement of cysts, your goo carpet overlaps and its harder to spot the cysts without the scan, or...
<u><b>Reason 3:</b></u>
Give the Flamethrower more use as it can easily spot cysts with hits AoE damage. This helps him fill out a bigger niche in the marine weaponry.
<u><b>Downsides:</b></u>
Marines will maybe struggle even more with this change, but i think that the current imbalance between kharaa and tsa is not related to cyst gameplay and should be handled by tweaking other elements of the game (hi exosuit!).
Comments
orly?
Thats quite a huge change. Will be interesting.
Will marines commander get something similar? Comm uses PRes to drop medpacks and ammo?
Thats quite a huge change. Will be interesting.
Will marines commander get something similar? Comm uses PRes to drop medpacks and ammo?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comm's can use PRes to drop weapons already
but with them costing actual res can hurt the comm quite heavily. with 2 res towers in the early game, which is quite common except for mineshaft, you can only place a new cyst every 32 seconds (0.25res x 2 harvesters x 8 seconds) then. so if you lose a few initial cysts..
game over or next one to comm.
second though is that normally i quit commanding after 3rd hive is up and dump my res into onos to help pushing the game to its end. that will be gone once you spend your pres while comming. which may not be bad for balance though.
Maybe i didnt get the phun - medpacks, ammo and weapon drops cost PR... (and have since the first day)
To be honest, they should even consider only letting gorges place cysts, because currently there's very little need for a gorge at the start of the team, requiring gorges to spread infestation would put gorges back at the center-stage (currently with ###### hydras and commander placing everything he's become heavily marginalised, this will get even worse when they take his bilebomb away) It would also GREATLY improve commander-gorge interaction. This is provided they find enough other things for the alien commander to do, since he's quite boring as it is.
P.res on cysts is definitely a step in the right direction, as is making them cheaper, now all they need is to buff hydras and we may actually see some more viable room control tactics appear as gorge.
An interesting expansion on this would be invisible extractors for 10 Tres per extractor, Plus an initial Tres research cost. This would be more costly but less micro intensive for the Khamm. Versus dropping a shade for 10 Tres and cloaking it as often as possible. The high cost should keep this from getting spammed.
example:
Cloaking a forward base (say an extractor, a crag, and a whip) this way would cost 30 Tres + the Tres research cost, so 30+ Tres. Basically half the cost of a hive. While a shade and some micro gives the same effect for 10 Tres.
Hey Psi, how do you know about this? I've been looking around for a list of upcoming features in the next patch (or current features on the test server), but I can't find it anywhere. Closest I can find is the pivotal project tracking, and that doesn't mention this at all.
The task was on the progress tracker last week, it became Accepted and was taken off by weekly refresh~
ARCs then wouldn't be able to immediately destroy a whole chunk of the chain with its monstrous 900 dmg per salvo, requiring a nearby Obs or using Scan to do some serious demolition.
I mean, if you can see the green blood splatter when you're axing a spot in the DI, you'll be doing damage to the Cyst anyhow. It'll just require some educated guess-work, is all.
^ This! The idea sounds nice. But it has to be balanced some way. Only make it available with shade hive. And I think it would be easier to upgrade all cysts at once with a costly T-Res upgrade from the veil.
It should be visible for about 5-7 seconds as it's placed before going invisible, only appearing with scans. It's a nice middle ground for the original idea of cysts/infestation being most vulnerable to flamethrowers, yet still allowing early game marines to do something about them requiring a little bit more effort than it does now.
An interesting expansion on this would be invisible extractors for 10 Tres per extractor, Plus an initial Tres research cost. This would be more costly but less micro intensive for the Khamm. Versus dropping a shade for 10 Tres and cloaking it as often as possible. The high cost should keep this from getting spammed.
example:
Cloaking a forward base (say an extractor, a crag, and a whip) this way would cost 30 Tres + the Tres research cost, so 30+ Tres. Basically half the cost of a hive. While a shade and some micro gives the same effect for 10 Tres.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I fu...ing love that idea!
It should be visible for about 5-7 seconds as it's placed before going invisible, only appearing with scans. It's a nice middle ground for the original idea of cysts/infestation being most vulnerable to flamethrowers, yet still allowing early game marines to do something about them requiring a little bit more effort than it does now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like the idea and I agree it should be a upgrade for shade hive. Fits the theme well.