A proposal to de-complicate hypermutation
serpico
Join Date: 2012-02-12 Member: 145150Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-02-12 Member: 145150Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">solves two exploits, and makes it more intuitive</div>Make it temporary.
If you have hypermutation selected as one of your upgrades, you can choose to evolve to any other life form provided the cost of your current life form + your current res is enough (same as current) but it doesn't last. Either there is a timer, or (I like this idea better) you have a finite amount of non-regenerating energy to spend as that life form. This wouldn't require any new interface changes! When your energy runs out, you go back to your real life form automatically.
While hyper-evolved to a new trait, you either cannot un-evolve hypermutation, or you can, but it will automatically revert you. This fixes one of the exploits. (No un-evolving hyper and grabbing cara) Also, no regaining res after dying. If you die while hyperevolved, you lose that much res. And no hyperevolving while already hyperevolved. That solves another of the exploits. (No running around the corner as a dying Onos and switching to skulk to keep your res). You might get lucky and happen to be un-evolving right then, but of course a time-delay to res-regain could also be added as has been suggested elsewhere.
All attempts to evolve while you have hyper-evolve selected will be assumed to be hyperevolutions. If you want to permanently change to something else, simply unevolve hyperevolution first and then do it.
Additionally, I think one of the reasons hypermutation is confusing to some poeple is that it is not really a lifeform evolution. It doesn't make your skulk a better skulk or your lerk a better lerk like all the other upgrades do. It makes your general alien a better alien. It's too meta. It's sort of a menu-clicking upgrade, which is why several have suggested it makes more sense as a khamm ability or passive ability. However, if it's a temporary ability, you are still essentially a skulk while hyperevolved to an Onos. You're just a shape-shifty skulk.
<u>PROS:</u>
Gets rid of two exploits.
More intuitive
Aesthetically preferable IMO
Who's with me?
edit:
Oh also, if the time delay for res-regain is added in tandem with this idea, it assures that the dreaded 5 minute Onos will have a vulnerable skulk/lerk period every so often where marines can whack 'im and take his res.
If you have hypermutation selected as one of your upgrades, you can choose to evolve to any other life form provided the cost of your current life form + your current res is enough (same as current) but it doesn't last. Either there is a timer, or (I like this idea better) you have a finite amount of non-regenerating energy to spend as that life form. This wouldn't require any new interface changes! When your energy runs out, you go back to your real life form automatically.
While hyper-evolved to a new trait, you either cannot un-evolve hypermutation, or you can, but it will automatically revert you. This fixes one of the exploits. (No un-evolving hyper and grabbing cara) Also, no regaining res after dying. If you die while hyperevolved, you lose that much res. And no hyperevolving while already hyperevolved. That solves another of the exploits. (No running around the corner as a dying Onos and switching to skulk to keep your res). You might get lucky and happen to be un-evolving right then, but of course a time-delay to res-regain could also be added as has been suggested elsewhere.
All attempts to evolve while you have hyper-evolve selected will be assumed to be hyperevolutions. If you want to permanently change to something else, simply unevolve hyperevolution first and then do it.
Additionally, I think one of the reasons hypermutation is confusing to some poeple is that it is not really a lifeform evolution. It doesn't make your skulk a better skulk or your lerk a better lerk like all the other upgrades do. It makes your general alien a better alien. It's too meta. It's sort of a menu-clicking upgrade, which is why several have suggested it makes more sense as a khamm ability or passive ability. However, if it's a temporary ability, you are still essentially a skulk while hyperevolved to an Onos. You're just a shape-shifty skulk.
<u>PROS:</u>
Gets rid of two exploits.
More intuitive
Aesthetically preferable IMO
Who's with me?
edit:
Oh also, if the time delay for res-regain is added in tandem with this idea, it assures that the dreaded 5 minute Onos will have a vulnerable skulk/lerk period every so often where marines can whack 'im and take his res.
Comments
This is exactly the kind of thing I want to see 'tested' in a public build. After people have had 2 weeks of 'hypermutation, first draft', let them have 2 weeks of this. Assess the
differences, read all the feedback, and then come up with a really good third revision based on the first two. It's an easy way to sort out this wacky ability without spending tons of time at the drawing board and testing internally with a small group.
Adrenaline?
Focus?
Frenzy?
Adrenaline?
Focus?
Frenzy?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
yes yes no :)
Worth a shot. Haha.
Focus was way too good, I remember most people hating it, and in combination with the current celerity it would be downright stupid. Skulks would homing missiles.
Frenzy was way too good with Fades as it was, so it would need to be reworked. It doesn't really make sense as a shift ability though.
<i>If</i> hyper is going to stay, I'd like it a lot better if it was a way to temporarily turn into other lifeforms instead of being a weird resource-management ability. There are a quite a few different interesting ways that could be implemented.
I think this sums it up. I cant see this upgrade work, even with your slightly better idea of implementation.
Why would I go to a higher lifeform with no/less upgrades and risk dying because the time runs out in the wrong moment? By design there should be no hard counter in this game, so switching lifeforms won't happen usually.
Adrenaline?
Focus?
Frenzy?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
lol it wasn't too many builds ago we had Frezy, or something similar. Guess they thought it was too powerful.
That does not mean it can't be balanced, as I wrote 2 posts before you.
I think something that could be quite interesting is perhaps it alters the secondary attacks of all the classes, which perhaps gives options then to how the classes play and can sort of 'change' the style of play.
Silence is already taken by the Shade e.g.
There's no real need for adrenaline, and tbh it's quite a boring upgrade.
Hmmm... I'll have to get back to this thread:P
1.) Going gorge briefly to heal or build a hive.
2.) Going gorge, lerk, or fade without setting back the process of saving for Onos (provided you're careful and don't die in the mean time).
3.) Temporary skulk to parasite or get through vents / onto high places. Would be pretty nice for gorge sometimes, no?
I'm excluding the resource-pooling abilities that are granted by egg-prepping because that's probably going to be removed. Even so, those are all very significant advantages. I think people knowing how to use it properly could be the difference between it being useless and OP. It's not really my favorite ability, but I think it <i>could</i> work, given a few tweaks.
The stated purpose of the Shift is to "outmaneuver and redeploy" which is why I can pretty much guarantee you're not going to see frenzy in it. Adrenaline and Focus could be argued, but they clearly don't fit the purpose of the Shift as well as hyper, even though they <i>do</i> fit better with the other upgrades in general.
The thing is, outmaneuvering is pretty much handled by celerity and "redeploying" is handled mostly by the khamm. The only impact players have on how the aliens are "deployed" is where they are and what they are, so with the former handled by celerity, the latter leaves hyper-evolution as the logical upgrade. If they do get rid of it, it might not be before entirely rethinking the purpose of the shift.
The more I think about this the more I worry that this entire idea of making the aliens maneuverable and redeploy-able is just going to make them early-game winners and late-game losers (which is how I always felt in NS1) but that's another matter.....
for example:
if the marines manage to pressure on a hive, the aliens should simply accept the punishment that they all were high or wrong lifeforms and noone can heal the hive without sacrificing his lifeform.
i cant imagine any game that simply bypasses the thought-progress for teching and counter-teching.
in sc2 you also cant just morph your broodlords back to corruptors just because there is an air army swarming you.
if i hypermutate in an onos and get killed, my res is gone, i wouldnt risk that for a temporary onos tbh.
i would prefer a tweak to the existing hypermutation like only 66% of your current lifeform count towards the higher one. because if you realy dont die in the time from lerk->fade->onos, you earned that onos i think. also, its only a problem im pub games where a pro-gamer cuts through the oposition.(have seen Rusty do it a few hours earlier)
this assumes the preevolved egg + hypermutation exploit gets fixed.
It's this thinking that is destroying the game.
I have been playing hours of this game, I am probably somewhere between casual and pro.
I read the forums regularly, etc... and I still can't get my head round what on earth hyper-mutation is. I could, if I wanted to read about it and think about how it could be used.
But this is a shooter, and from the fps perspective I am not playing a numbers game.
Actually, it's this thinking that has the potential to save this game. If you love overcomplicated ideas that aren't fun or able to be balanced with a reasonable amount of work, I don't know what to say...
<!--quoteo(post=1941696:date=Jun 5 2012, 05:27 PM:name=Raneman)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Raneman @ Jun 5 2012, 05:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941696"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Are you the reason they removed cysts from gorge?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's a topic for another (closed) thread, not this one.
if i hypermutate in an onos and get killed, my res is gone, i wouldnt risk that for a temporary onos tbh.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You'd only lose the res if you died while you were an Onos (possibly + a short time delay). If you die while you're an hyperevolved as an Onos, you effectively had the same risk and reward as going Onos normally. If you die after your time runs out and don't lose the res, you have the same risk and reward as going skulk. The only extra risk you'd be taking beyond normal evolution is if there was a time delay for regaining res after evolving back, and that would depend on the length of the delay, which could be tweaked to a good balance.
I don't necessarily agree with this.
Either gorge healing is abysmal (taking ~4 minutes to completely heal a hive), or Marine welders are insanely over-powered (not even taking 15 seconds to fully repair a com station).
One marine can damage a hive faster than a gorge can heal it.
A marine can repair a com faster than a onos can damage it.
Hyper-mutation in itself is a horrible gimmick ability, that only masks the poor healing performance of a gorge; ability to have multiple people switch to gorge temporarily.
Hyper-mutation needs to go, and gorge healing needs to be buffed immensely, or Marine's repair speed needs a swift kick in the balls.
Also I somewhat agree that the upgrade once obtained shouldn't be changable..
Actually I just had a thought.. what if you de-evolve and you get some armor points instead of res, depending on which highest lifeform you've obtained.. So if you go from fade to lerk you get less armor than if you went from onos. That way the skill still has merit for going back in lifeforms.. also, reduce cost if you re-evolve to higher lifeform.. i.e. it would normally cost 45 to go back to onos from lerk, but if you were already onos with that life it would only cost 36 (80%).
It would basicly mean higher lifeforms(earlier onos) for the expense of an upgrade-slot. Easy to exploit.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also I somewhat agree that the upgrade once obtained shouldn't be changable..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Yes, agree
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->what if you de-evolve and you get some armor points instead of res, depending on which highest lifeform you've obtained.. So if you go from fade to lerk you get less armor than if you went from onos. also, reduce cost if you re-evolve to higher lifeform.. i.e. it would normally cost 45 to go back to onos from lerk, but if you were already onos with that life it would only cost 36 (80%).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why would anyone go from onos or fade back to lerk? Certainly not for a few armor-points. Maybe I cant just get my head around this hypermutation-idea
Well one reason from fade to lerk.. if lerk ever gets bilebomb again. But yeah, there <i>shouldn't</i> be a reason.. but if someone happens to do it maybe if even by accident, they're not totally at a loss.. because they not only have extra armor as their current lifeform but it wont cost them full resources again to reobtain the other lifeform IF they can stay alive.