Cyst Spam
Omega_K2
Join Date: 2011-12-25 Member: 139013Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2011-12-25 Member: 139013Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">Dynamic PRES cost of cysts</div>So, we had the 2 PRES Cysts for a while now and while I generally like the change, I also think it leads to too much Cyst spam, especially once the aliens get some extractors running.
Before, Cyst were a value target to attack as marine because you can cut off the chain and hit the alien team by doing that, now it's only annoying at most to redrop the cysts, and less of a problem. Most of the time attacking cysts is a bit of a waste of time.
So I think in order to have the best of both worlds, the old energy system (less spam, more valueable) and the curret PRES system (can actually place cysts), I suggest that the PRES costs increases as the game progresses.
There are a multitude of ways to do that, but I was thinking something like bumping up the cost by 1 every 10 cysts or so would work pretty well. So if you spam cysts, you'll end up having to pay 3, 4 or 5 PRES soon, but you can still do if the situation requires it, on the other hand if you carefully place them, you'll have a lot of spare PRES. If the cysts die, the cost goes back to the old value.
Possibly there might be some grace period after the cost bump kicks in, for example, the first 15 cysts are 2 PRES, then Cyst 16 to 25 3PRES, 26 to 36 4PRES and so on.
Another way would be to tie it to the amount of hives or overall res flow, though I think based on the count it would be preferrable.
The exact values probably have to be fine tuned, but it seems better then spamming cysts all over the map, as cysts decrease performance on client and server and also provide an advantage to the aliens; lot of people already complained that cysts make ninjaing impossible as you see marines walk though etc, so imposing a limit on the amount of cysts you can place with little PRES cost would force alien coms to leave gabs unless they have excess PRES.
Before, Cyst were a value target to attack as marine because you can cut off the chain and hit the alien team by doing that, now it's only annoying at most to redrop the cysts, and less of a problem. Most of the time attacking cysts is a bit of a waste of time.
So I think in order to have the best of both worlds, the old energy system (less spam, more valueable) and the curret PRES system (can actually place cysts), I suggest that the PRES costs increases as the game progresses.
There are a multitude of ways to do that, but I was thinking something like bumping up the cost by 1 every 10 cysts or so would work pretty well. So if you spam cysts, you'll end up having to pay 3, 4 or 5 PRES soon, but you can still do if the situation requires it, on the other hand if you carefully place them, you'll have a lot of spare PRES. If the cysts die, the cost goes back to the old value.
Possibly there might be some grace period after the cost bump kicks in, for example, the first 15 cysts are 2 PRES, then Cyst 16 to 25 3PRES, 26 to 36 4PRES and so on.
Another way would be to tie it to the amount of hives or overall res flow, though I think based on the count it would be preferrable.
The exact values probably have to be fine tuned, but it seems better then spamming cysts all over the map, as cysts decrease performance on client and server and also provide an advantage to the aliens; lot of people already complained that cysts make ninjaing impossible as you see marines walk though etc, so imposing a limit on the amount of cysts you can place with little PRES cost would force alien coms to leave gabs unless they have excess PRES.
Comments
I thought about that too, but, if you increase start res, aliens can get lifeforms even faster which means we'll be seeing fades and onos earlier aswell and I honestly think we don't need that.
Having it increase dynamically also gives some importanace to cysts lategame, even with increased cost, late game they would be spammable, it's just that the situation would happen sightly later. It also helps the alien incase they loose a lost of cysts/hives as the cost lowers again.
This way, only attacking units on the ground would be able to cyst up marine bases directly, and there would be an extra benefit to taking out the power, as the cysts would then flow. It would be as if the power keeps the infestation at bay, and when it fails, it rushes in.
That would be very bad for the alien comm, when will he be able to place the next one? What will he do in the meantime?
Alien comm is already very boring/slow paced, and if you go and add 10 second cooldown on every cyst placement, people will fall asleep.
It's better to give some trade-offs to cysts, so that's not the only thing alien comm uses PRes on.