increasing late game alien effectiveness

Wheeee

<div class="IPBDescription">without overpowering early game</div>so, with b212 seeing the introduction of beefed up cara, the new cara is not balanced at all. it's alright late game, but skulks are wiping the floor with marines early game.

what i'd like to see is:

- each upgraded hive you get 1 free upgrade of that type (crag hive gives either cara or regen, shade hive gives silence or camo, etc) for each alien.
- you are not limited to 1 upgrade per hive. You can evolve as many upgrades as you have researched, e.g. if you had 2 hives and had camo, silence, crag, and regen all researched, and one of your hives was taken down, you can still select all of them when evolving.
- each extra upgrade beyond your free ones costs 1/10 of your lifeform cost + 1. so let's say the khamm upgraded both cara and regen with your initial crag hive. that means that as a skulk, if you wanted both you could get it for 1 pres (0 for the free upgrade, then 1 for the 2nd). as a gorge, it would cost 2, as a lerk it would cost 4, as a fade it would cost 6, as an onos it would cost 8(9 if you rounded up).
- each extra upgrade beyond the free ones costs an extra 10% evolve time.
- hypermutation upgrade removes the extra evolve time and reduces the upgrade costs by some amount (instead of refunding pres from lifeforms).

This promotes getting multiple hives for the extra free upgrades, allows aliens to sink resources into more upgrades which will increase their survivability (celerity, silence, camo, cara, regen skulks could be quite effective ambushers), and most of all, gives aliens more choices while -not- tinkering with things like cara which break the early game skulk vs LMG. Do you go for first hive +2 upgrades for more effective skulks/lerks gorges? do you rush 2nd hive for 2nd tier abilities + another upgrade type/free upgrade? do you try to gain more map control for better income for faster lifeforms? i believe this would introduce some actual choices to alien teching.

rantology

I think there's a point where you must admit defeat and realize that all upgrades are not created equal. They took the first step with that by reducing the cost of shade/shift stuff, but more needs to be done.

IMO carapace should be reverted to the 212 values (50 armor skulk and 100 armor lerk is just not viable with the current hit reg), and armor should scale based on # of hives, independently of carapace. So you still get bonus armor from it, but don't feel completely naked and helpless without it in mid/late game. Maybe even keep the slowdown mechanic on cara, although that needs tweaking as seen on things like the Onos.


I think upgrades costing res is interesting. Aliens definitely needed p-res sinks IMO, marines often use mines and/or welders in early/mid game where-as aliens had nothing. I think 1 p-res upgrades help with that. Although the other side of the fence is that aliens must pay for their upgrades where marines get them passively and for free. Not sure about it, but in practice it does help stagger the life-form explosions. I think when alien abilities are tied to 2nd hive it won't be totally necessary though as aliens will need to use lerk/gorge to secure their second hive and so you won't see as many fade/onos explosions.

The solution in the OP is actually pretty cool. Some of it seems harsh, the extra evolution time seems unnecessary. It might be confusing/difficult to convey clearly in the game though.

MisterNubs

Arms lab equivalent (mutation chamber) for Kharaa. Let Kharaa tech armor(carapace), frenzy(attack speed) using the mutation chamber in same way marines tech weapon damage and armor using the arms lab.

It solves the issue of making Crag hive first pick and the explosive power aliens receive at the beginning of the game from carapace. I can also help make Aliens not suck so much completely late game with a stronger (level 3) carapace. Not to mention carapace will also no longer need a "trade-off" that becomes a balancing head-ache between alien lifeforms.

Wheeee

the good thing about allowing aliens to purchase all available upgrades is that you don't need to balance individual abilities and chambers against marines. you only need to balance full upgrades per tech tier.

Kurrine

<!--quoteo(post=1948002:date=Jun 30 2012, 09:43 AM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Jun 30 2012, 09:43 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1948002"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think there's a point where you must admit defeat and realize that all upgrades are not created equal. They took the first step with that by reducing the cost of shade/shift stuff, but more needs to be done.

IMO carapace should be reverted to the 212 values (50 armor skulk and 100 armor lerk is just not viable with the current hit reg), and armor should scale based on # of hives, independently of carapace. So you still get bonus armor from it, but don't feel completely naked and helpless without it in mid/late game. Maybe even keep the slowdown mechanic on cara, although that needs tweaking as seen on things like the Onos.


I think upgrades costing res is interesting. Aliens definitely needed p-res sinks IMO, marines often use mines and/or welders in early/mid game where-as aliens had nothing. I think 1 p-res upgrades help with that. Although the other side of the fence is that aliens must pay for their upgrades where marines get them passively and for free. Not sure about it, but in practice it does help stagger the life-form explosions. I think when alien abilities are tied to 2nd hive it won't be totally necessary though as aliens will need to use lerk/gorge to secure their second hive and so you won't see as many fade/onos explosions.

The solution in the OP is actually pretty cool. Some of it seems harsh, the extra evolution time seems unnecessary. It might be confusing/difficult to convey clearly in the game though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--coloro:#9ACD32--><span style="color:#9ACD32"><!--/coloro-->I'm all for seeing Hive based Armor scaling definitely, it worked in NS1 fine it certainly seems, broken record as that may sound to be for anything involving a backpedal of mechanics to those basics.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

Wheeee

if there's hive-based scaling, i don't want it to be on from cara. it should add to the base armor of the alien.

Kurrine

<!--coloro:#9ACD32--><span style="color:#9ACD32"><!--/coloro-->Of course.
I'm not interested in scaling what's supposed to be an optional upgrade any further really. It's already aside from with onos at the moment too desirable to go without generally.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

MisterNubs

<!--quoteo(post=1948283:date=Jul 1 2012, 09:48 PM:name=Kurrine)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kurrine @ Jul 1 2012, 09:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1948283"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--coloro:#9ACD32--><span style="color:#9ACD32"><!--/coloro-->Of course.
I'm not interested in scaling what's supposed to be an optional upgrade any further really. It's already aside from with onos at the moment <b>too desirable to go without generally</b>.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Hence why it shouldn't be a tech on the crag hive. Either needs to be a tech on a new structure, or only hives should upgrade armor/health. The latter could give aliens a big boost on 3 hives, 2nd hive can give the same amount of armor/hp carapace currently does.

Kurrine

<!--coloro:#9ACD32--><span style="color:#9ACD32"><!--/coloro-->Why? I'm really not fond of all that's already been ripped from Starcraft as it is, which as I recall is generally your example for this idea. It's a sequel to NS1 so I'm more interested in seeing hive scaling bleed over from the previous than trying to be another game's sequel in any more mechanics. Not to mention this keeps yet another asset from needing to be modeled, animated, and sound effects made for from a practical standpoint. <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

Locklear

<!--quoteo(post=1948002:date=Jun 30 2012, 09:43 AM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Jun 30 2012, 09:43 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1948002"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think there's a point where you must admit defeat and realize that all upgrades are not created equal. They took the first step with that by reducing the cost of shade/shift stuff, but more needs to be done.

IMO carapace should be reverted to the 212 values (50 armor skulk and 100 armor lerk is just not viable with the current hit reg), and armor should scale based on # of hives, independently of carapace. So you still get bonus armor from it, but don't feel completely naked and helpless without it in mid/late game. Maybe even keep the slowdown mechanic on cara, although that needs tweaking as seen on things like the Onos.


I think upgrades costing res is interesting. Aliens definitely needed p-res sinks IMO, marines often use mines and/or welders in early/mid game where-as aliens had nothing. I think 1 p-res upgrades help with that. Although the other side of the fence is that aliens must pay for their upgrades where marines get them passively and for free. Not sure about it, but in practice it does help stagger the life-form explosions. I think when alien abilities are tied to 2nd hive it won't be totally necessary though as aliens will need to use lerk/gorge to secure their second hive and so you won't see as many fade/onos explosions.

The solution in the OP is actually pretty cool. Some of it seems harsh, the extra evolution time seems unnecessary. It might be confusing/difficult to convey clearly in the game though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Rantology's posts make me mushy.

_Necro_

Yeah the upgrades are not balanced. Leap (an upgrade for every player that has not evolved) needs to be way more costly. Carapace upgrades (in hive and building) need costs increased too.