Pondering Alien Upgrades
internetexplorer
Join Date: 2011-10-13 Member: 127255Members
Join Date: 2011-10-13 Member: 127255Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Player interactions etc</div>It seems like the alien upgrades have a few different design patterns to them. I'm wondering about these in a large-scale sense (not talking about balance etc). Here's what I see:
<ul><li><b>Camouflage</b> - alien players choose this, but both marines and aliens can interact with it (sneaking around, scanning etc)</li><li><b>Silence </b>- alien players choose this, and only they 'interact' with it (nothing for the marines makes silent aliens audible or detects silence for the player)</li><li><b>Frenzy </b>- interaction between aliens and marines (the upgrade only *does* something when you get a kill)</li><li><b>Swarm </b>- interaction between aliens (the upgrade only *does* something when you and a teammate attack a target together)</li><li><b>Celerity </b>- interaction with marines and aliens (you speed up by how you play, and you slow down if you are shot or enter combat etc)</li><li><b>Hypermutation </b>- only used by the player purchasing it (enemies cannot affect your evolution/refund outside of killing the egg, which is not exclusive to hypermutation)</li><li><b>Regeneration </b>- interaction with aliens and marines (aliens must remain undamaged after taking damage for X time for it to trigger)</li><li><b>Carapace</b> - only used by the player who buys it (marines have no interaction with your carapace, other than noticing it when you survive damage)</li></ul>
It seems like some of the upgrades are designed deliberately to force alien-marine (or alien-alien) interaction, and others are not.
Should all the upgrades create (or depend on) player-player interactions? Should they not?
Is there a way to bring player-player interactions into the upgrades that do not have it? (hypermutation, carapace, silence)
Personally, I like the idea of upgrades being a choice of which player-player interactions you want to change (or create), rather than simply "more armour" or "move faster all the time", but I can see that it's very difficult to make those things work in the game at large. Frenzy and Swarm were both removed, and although I'm not sure of why, part of it might be that they were too 'heavy'.
Thoughts?
<ul><li><b>Camouflage</b> - alien players choose this, but both marines and aliens can interact with it (sneaking around, scanning etc)</li><li><b>Silence </b>- alien players choose this, and only they 'interact' with it (nothing for the marines makes silent aliens audible or detects silence for the player)</li><li><b>Frenzy </b>- interaction between aliens and marines (the upgrade only *does* something when you get a kill)</li><li><b>Swarm </b>- interaction between aliens (the upgrade only *does* something when you and a teammate attack a target together)</li><li><b>Celerity </b>- interaction with marines and aliens (you speed up by how you play, and you slow down if you are shot or enter combat etc)</li><li><b>Hypermutation </b>- only used by the player purchasing it (enemies cannot affect your evolution/refund outside of killing the egg, which is not exclusive to hypermutation)</li><li><b>Regeneration </b>- interaction with aliens and marines (aliens must remain undamaged after taking damage for X time for it to trigger)</li><li><b>Carapace</b> - only used by the player who buys it (marines have no interaction with your carapace, other than noticing it when you survive damage)</li></ul>
It seems like some of the upgrades are designed deliberately to force alien-marine (or alien-alien) interaction, and others are not.
Should all the upgrades create (or depend on) player-player interactions? Should they not?
Is there a way to bring player-player interactions into the upgrades that do not have it? (hypermutation, carapace, silence)
Personally, I like the idea of upgrades being a choice of which player-player interactions you want to change (or create), rather than simply "more armour" or "move faster all the time", but I can see that it's very difficult to make those things work in the game at large. Frenzy and Swarm were both removed, and although I'm not sure of why, part of it might be that they were too 'heavy'.
Thoughts?