semi-tied lifeforms
Solitario
Join Date: 2006-10-29 Member: 58097Members
Join Date: 2006-10-29 Member: 58097Members
<b>Possible Problems</b>
<ul><li>untied lifeforms -> Aliens can play with 1 Hive and win the game</li><li>tied lifeforms -> Aliens are ###### with 1 Hive, the longer the game lasts, no comeback</li></ul>
<b>Possible Solution: semi-tied lifeforms</b>
with more hives, Alien will unlock new lifeforms! But if the hives are destroyed,
The lifeforms are still available. Marines don't loose their upgrades as well
So Aliens are forced to get more hives, but when they get destroyed, they still can make a comeback
<ul><li>untied lifeforms -> Aliens can play with 1 Hive and win the game</li><li>tied lifeforms -> Aliens are ###### with 1 Hive, the longer the game lasts, no comeback</li></ul>
<b>Possible Solution: semi-tied lifeforms</b>
with more hives, Alien will unlock new lifeforms! But if the hives are destroyed,
The lifeforms are still available. Marines don't loose their upgrades as well
So Aliens are forced to get more hives, but when they get destroyed, they still can make a comeback
Comments
<ul><li>untied lifeforms -> Aliens can play with 1 Hive and win the game</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is a problem why?
They dont Need any strategy or save for a 2nd Hive. Just some RTs, save for onos, and Rush Marine base.
Should be a Short and Boring Game, imho. (it's like SC2 1Base all-in)
Should be a Short and Boring Game, imho. (it's like SC2 1Base all-in)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Isn't that basically what Marines do with ARCs?
ok, then I was wrong on that. On the other Hand, they have so mana buildings providing upgrades and Equipment. If Aliens cant get to higher lifeforms b/c they Loose 1 hive, they got a huge disadvantage.
Marines have mostly 1 Base with all their stuff, they can easily defend it and have beacon as well if ist gets close. I Never saw a Marine Team looking their tech
Should be a Short and Boring Game, imho. (it's like SC2 1Base all-in)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then do balance-tweaks to fix that issue, don't curtail strategical potential.
then ARCs arent that well balanced yet, imo :)
Well, for the most part.
Alternatively they could just consider cutting starting T.res for aliens, since it makes very little sense for both teams to receive equal starting amounts when one side has A LOT more tech they need to invest in.
I'd rather see the Kham make a conscious choice between unlocking Lerk, Fade, and Onos, with each path increasing in difficulty, time, and eventual lifeform cost, but also in payoff. Go Onos the whole game and you're about as likely to live to use it as a Marine team that rushes HA/JPs. Likewise, slowly teching up through the lifeform trees will give you plenty of options, but unless you have good resource control you may be outpaced by Marines. Maybe even make Gorges need research, but for dirt cheap and quick speed.
Given the choice between Fades and Oni, who really wouldn't choose to unlock the latter? The Onos has most of the hit and run capability of the Fade, with much better stats.
insteading of teching up early on, you can also expand more (to get more eggs and boost your economy), or go for personal upgrades or build a quick whip army (well i don't see this working currently).
having to unlock life form gives you actually not more choices. at the 6 minute mark fades have to be researched, at 10 onos (just random numbers here now). where are the choices here, and how would that influence early game strategy?
a better approach to delaying that 6 minute fade would be far less starting pres.
this is working exactly in unison with the high level design document, and fits with the khammander's approach to comming environment instead of the individual.
- Untied lifeforms can work, ns1 works like that.
- Having a building for each life form. Savage 2 works like that, and I find it really boring for some reason. The lerk den, the fade den, the onos den, it's a bit of an overkill.
- You could have a lair upgrade like in stracraft to unlock fade and onos.
Marine com limits what the players can do as well. If he doesn't research shotguns then you can't use them. If he doesn't research armour then tough luck. I think giving the alien com the ability to choose what to research and what not to is far better than the current approach.
In my opinion this is not the case for the onos anyway, a 2nd hive is hardly a must to make the onos a viable choice. It is for the fade, since a fade with just shadowstep will go down a lot quicker, but an onos without stomp won't. And the third hive is entirely redundant in that respect. But even if the hives were more important, aliens just have a lot more T.res to waste on refreshing and placing RTS since they have no other tech to get other than rushing a second hive for 75 res. Adding more depth to the alien tech tree would solve this, if you guys do not believe unlocking lifeforms is a good idea.
I don't think I quite understand the 1-hive upgrading though, would this mean you can get leap at 1-hive if you throw the T.res at it? Won't that further water down the importance 2nd and 3rd hive? It would at least need a significant cost decrease if it's just going to be like the CC then. (Albeit a little more important since it would still allow for more lifeform upgrades I guess) It may also drastically alter alien gameplay, i.e we may see less need for aliens to get a 2nd or 3rd hive, which imo is what makes the game asymmetric and interesting (Aliens have to try and expand at least, they can't just turtle up in their base)
I suppose it could be interesting to see, but I'm not sure it's also going to do a whole lot as long as the base onos (without significant hive upgrades or a second hive) isn't made weaker. I think the idea of a 'young onos' has a lot of merit in this regard, since it's a (visually noticeable) weaker but still viable lifeform early in the game. Not to mention that by comparison aliens will still lack tech compared to marines, and thus have a lot more spare T.res. (Since all you're doing is basically taking stuff calculated in the cost of the 2nd hive and making them unlock-able separately)
This could work, but only if you keep abilities tied to hive, so there is a reason to get it, except being an expensive healing station.
Seeing as the marine commander have to do researches to unlock marine arsenal, and aliens have to use less resources than marines, is making the suggestion even better.
Now give the alien comm more stuff to use his PRes on, there needs to be tradeoffs to cysts.
It's still possible to capture alot of harvesters, and get a lifeform. He needs more PRes sinks.
Same goes for all the small individual structure energy pools, they need more tradeoffs. Coincedence?
The tech requirements could be a simple tech that is researched at any hive and is not lost even if hive goes down. There should be different tech for each lifeform and their costs could be for example the same ones that are needed to evolve now, except in t.res of course.
So gorge tech would be 10, lerk 30, fade 50, onos 75. Of course all of this could be fine tuned further.
What this would do for the gameplay?
It would add much more t.res expenditure for aliens thus making spamming crags, whips and hives less obvious strategy. It would also make it slower for aliens to reach higher lifeforms thus preventing 7 minutes 2 hives triple onos rushes. It would also give more strategic decisions to the alien comm because he could skip lifeforms such as gorge, lerk or fade. Skipping any of them would make getting the higher lifeform faster but has serious consequences to the combat effectivity.
Is someone willing to mod this? Would be great to try it out!
The tech requirements could be a simple tech that is researched at any hive and is not lost even if hive goes down. There should be different tech for each lifeform and their costs could be for example the same ones that are needed to evolve now, except in t.res of course.
So gorge tech would be 10, lerk 30, fade 50, onos 75. Of course all of this could be fine tuned further.
What this would do for the gameplay?
It would add much more t.res expenditure for aliens thus making spamming crags, whips and hives less obvious strategy. It would also make it slower for aliens to reach higher lifeforms thus preventing 7 minutes 2 hives triple onos rushes. It would also give more strategic decisions to the alien comm because he could skip lifeforms such as gorge, lerk or fade. Skipping any of them would make getting the higher lifeform faster but has serious consequences to the combat effectivity.
Is someone willing to mod this? Would be great to try it out!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
what would this change? yeah i see it's a good idea to give the alien comm choices (there are no currently, not really) but unlocking the onos at ~4 minutes in the game makes no sense. but, unlocking a tier makes (skulks can have leap or even xenocide early on). marines would need a counter for fast tech of course (PT lab untied from adv. armory?), where both side could chose to invest their starting res in high tech in the beginning, sacrificing all economy (which could backfire very easily, no res for onos, RTs or tech switches)
also having to research life forms would just create the situation which we have on the marine side (which is not as there bad as for aliens): commander does not research it, half of the game features are lost (pub games, competitive is another thing).
i even coded that feature in ~6 months ago in a mod, and i changed my opinion about it. instead i started to promoted the ns1 tech tree more, untie life-forms from number of hives.
if "pure" hives server only the purpose for increased respawn rate and for safety, then im sure we will also decrease the hive cost.
No, it doesn't make much sense THAT early, so aliens comms wouldn't do it. But after getting some harvesters, he could decide to skip Lerk/Fade "tech" to go to Onos if his skulks are doing a good job holding marines off.
<!--quoteo(post=1922226:date=Apr 5 2012, 11:06 AM:name=Sewlek)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Sewlek @ Apr 5 2012, 11:06 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1922226"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->marines would need a counter for fast tech of cours<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It would be good if marines could somehow scout which alien lifeforms had been researched. If they saw that aliens were going right to Onos, they could rush the aliens before they get a chance to actually evolve any. Marine scouting now is limited to WHERE aliens are expanding, but not what they're doing tech-wise because aliens tech virtually the same every game. Everyone skulks with maybe one gorge...a few minutes later you see 1-2 lerks...a few minutes later you see 2-3 fades...a few minutes later you see some Onos.
Just like Marines can skip upgrades if their marines are doing well, or skip GLs/FTs and go right for JPs.
the difference is p.res. onos costs 75, where fade costs only 50. why not spend some tres to get an advantage 'right now' until other players got 25 pres more? that's what i mean. if you don't research lerk for example, then you are stuck on skulk/gorge until fades are there. this is a decision that should be made by each individual player. (marine weapons have all similar costs compared with each other, so once you have the adv. armory there is a decision to make what to research first, for aliens this decision is obvios: research what you can effort)