On cysts
Scrajm
Join Date: 2011-10-17 Member: 127859Members
Join Date: 2011-10-17 Member: 127859Members
<div class="IPBDescription">An argument</div>On cysts
This is going to be a long post. Don't bother reading if you can't read all of it.
At the moment we have a huge problem with cysts. Its spammable, and you can easily reach close rines RTs very early in the game, way before rines have any possibility to "counter" with flames. Usually you can put 5-6 around each close RT and this hurt rines so bad they never will win with evenly skilled teams in organized play where alien comm isn't a retard.
What I propose is a one way of fixing it. I know there are alot of other ideas, but here I am going to argue for why I believe this is the only viable way of dealing with the cyst problem.
What I propose: Make the cysts cost 2 tres. Make cysts 1/5 of HP. Make them invisible, revealed by a scan. They can still be killed though if you find them (without the scan). Remove unconnected cyst damage.
Why I think it's the only viable way: First and foremost, all other solutions are bad. The only viable other way to deal with it, is by removing them (and bring back NS1), but I for one don't want that. I like the cysts. But as they are implemented now, it will never, ever, ever, ever, work properly for highly competitive teams.
Let me start with why increasing cool down for cysts is bad idea. This is, to my knowledge, what the devs are thinking of doing now. This will surely solve the issue with cyst spamming in a base in a very short time, when alien com is "out-cysting" the rines. But it will still be broken in that aspect that if aliens manage to conquer a rine close RT and they manage to hold it for say 60 seconds. In an even match this will happen from time to time. And here comes the major issue: now rines will never be able to take it back against a competent alien com. Because alien com can now drop a cyst every x secs around the RT, and after a while there will be so much cysts, that it will take rines almost 15 mags of LMG to clear all the cysts before they actually can drop the RT. Now this is really bad for gameplay, since this will make it almost impossible for the rines to actually retake an RT. It will also force the rines to commit for a long time fighting cysts instead of what's fun: killing aliens. It will be even more problematic if aliens are dominating for a short duration, as it will make sure rines never will be able to come back, since then they will have to fight cysts. But in any type of sport, e-sport or whatever, its crucial that comebacks are available. Going down this road will remove any types of comebacks, other than cheesy rushes.
So why is 1/5 of hp the best solution? Well, one reason is that fighting cysts are boring. Another reason is that cyst spamming will never work. If aliens have 15 cysts around an rt, 2 rines can actually take it down in a matter of seconds, instead of how it is now, where it can take almost a minute. Just the knowledge of this will deter alien com from cyst spamming from the very beginning, making for a more appealing game play where you don't run around killing cysts all game long. So even in a super late game, where aliens dont have that much other to spend on, you will actually still be PvPing as rine, rather than PvEing the cysts, since cyst spam doesn't pay off at all.
Why is 2 tres better than 1 tres? Because it will make sure that khamm cant do everything. He need to choose: do I expand to that RT, or do I go for a tech? Now, alien com can usually do everything. I can actually even go for 3 tres, what's important is that aliens should have to choose.
Why invisibility? Well, having such a low HP on the cyst could be very annoying if just 1 rine come in and snipe 4-5 cysts. But on the other hand, having bad map control and awareness should be punished, but perhaps not so severe. So this will make sure that 1 rine cant wreck havoc alone, at least not without rine com support. And with a scan costing 4 tres, rine com needs to commit. He/she needs to choose: do I sacrifice tres for a scan, or should I let it go? Is it important for rine com to clear this area, or should he/she save res for tech/meds? It's also quite a nice feeling trying to find hidden cysts as rine, and as rine com, scanning and see the cysts be killed.
Why remove unconnected cyst dmg? Since cysts are so easily killed, you can't have your whole cyst chain die because of 1 sneaky rine with com support. Removing this feature will make sure that it less annoying, and less punishing if cyst chain is broken.
All in all, this way of dealing with cysts will make game more open since it gives opportunites for steady comebacks since it makes the gameflow less static. It will also make the game less about PvE and more about PvP, and last but not least, it will give for more thrilling and appealing gameplay.
The last thing I would like to say is that this system has been tried for several gathers now, and we will try it in PCWs soon. So far, I think it has worked much better than the current system, and I believe many of those who have played with us thinks the same.
This is going to be a long post. Don't bother reading if you can't read all of it.
At the moment we have a huge problem with cysts. Its spammable, and you can easily reach close rines RTs very early in the game, way before rines have any possibility to "counter" with flames. Usually you can put 5-6 around each close RT and this hurt rines so bad they never will win with evenly skilled teams in organized play where alien comm isn't a retard.
What I propose is a one way of fixing it. I know there are alot of other ideas, but here I am going to argue for why I believe this is the only viable way of dealing with the cyst problem.
What I propose: Make the cysts cost 2 tres. Make cysts 1/5 of HP. Make them invisible, revealed by a scan. They can still be killed though if you find them (without the scan). Remove unconnected cyst damage.
Why I think it's the only viable way: First and foremost, all other solutions are bad. The only viable other way to deal with it, is by removing them (and bring back NS1), but I for one don't want that. I like the cysts. But as they are implemented now, it will never, ever, ever, ever, work properly for highly competitive teams.
Let me start with why increasing cool down for cysts is bad idea. This is, to my knowledge, what the devs are thinking of doing now. This will surely solve the issue with cyst spamming in a base in a very short time, when alien com is "out-cysting" the rines. But it will still be broken in that aspect that if aliens manage to conquer a rine close RT and they manage to hold it for say 60 seconds. In an even match this will happen from time to time. And here comes the major issue: now rines will never be able to take it back against a competent alien com. Because alien com can now drop a cyst every x secs around the RT, and after a while there will be so much cysts, that it will take rines almost 15 mags of LMG to clear all the cysts before they actually can drop the RT. Now this is really bad for gameplay, since this will make it almost impossible for the rines to actually retake an RT. It will also force the rines to commit for a long time fighting cysts instead of what's fun: killing aliens. It will be even more problematic if aliens are dominating for a short duration, as it will make sure rines never will be able to come back, since then they will have to fight cysts. But in any type of sport, e-sport or whatever, its crucial that comebacks are available. Going down this road will remove any types of comebacks, other than cheesy rushes.
So why is 1/5 of hp the best solution? Well, one reason is that fighting cysts are boring. Another reason is that cyst spamming will never work. If aliens have 15 cysts around an rt, 2 rines can actually take it down in a matter of seconds, instead of how it is now, where it can take almost a minute. Just the knowledge of this will deter alien com from cyst spamming from the very beginning, making for a more appealing game play where you don't run around killing cysts all game long. So even in a super late game, where aliens dont have that much other to spend on, you will actually still be PvPing as rine, rather than PvEing the cysts, since cyst spam doesn't pay off at all.
Why is 2 tres better than 1 tres? Because it will make sure that khamm cant do everything. He need to choose: do I expand to that RT, or do I go for a tech? Now, alien com can usually do everything. I can actually even go for 3 tres, what's important is that aliens should have to choose.
Why invisibility? Well, having such a low HP on the cyst could be very annoying if just 1 rine come in and snipe 4-5 cysts. But on the other hand, having bad map control and awareness should be punished, but perhaps not so severe. So this will make sure that 1 rine cant wreck havoc alone, at least not without rine com support. And with a scan costing 4 tres, rine com needs to commit. He/she needs to choose: do I sacrifice tres for a scan, or should I let it go? Is it important for rine com to clear this area, or should he/she save res for tech/meds? It's also quite a nice feeling trying to find hidden cysts as rine, and as rine com, scanning and see the cysts be killed.
Why remove unconnected cyst dmg? Since cysts are so easily killed, you can't have your whole cyst chain die because of 1 sneaky rine with com support. Removing this feature will make sure that it less annoying, and less punishing if cyst chain is broken.
All in all, this way of dealing with cysts will make game more open since it gives opportunites for steady comebacks since it makes the gameflow less static. It will also make the game less about PvE and more about PvP, and last but not least, it will give for more thrilling and appealing gameplay.
The last thing I would like to say is that this system has been tried for several gathers now, and we will try it in PCWs soon. So far, I think it has worked much better than the current system, and I believe many of those who have played with us thinks the same.
Comments
Since you don't see them you kind of forget that they exists, except when the comm scan, which creates a "cyst killing event".
I'm not so sure about the "remove unconnected cyst dmg" - seems like it would promote cyst spamming, not help remove it.
Personally I think energy should be brought back, why was it gotten rid of anyway? It made sense to limit cyst spamming in early game because the Khaam had to choose between Cysts, Mist, or Drifters. I think energy should come back and more things should be tied to it.
I didn't knew it was on, but it's not unintuitive: the comm scans, the cysts appear, you shoot them.
What about when the Comm doesn't scan? That's when I'm saying it will not be intuitive -can't rely on having experienced players or Comms.
1/5 does seem a bit low -thats 5 with 1 lmg clip i think- for a 2 tres structure, 1/3 might be a bit more reasonable, especially if their only defense is countered by a scan.
i like the no disconnect damage, it would give alien comm a new way to look at the map if there were isolated areas that marines had taken back, but not cleared all the way, that could still be built on, like a sneaky shade/crag support area behind enemy lines. would open up a lot more opportunities for alien attack.
I don't think it's the only solution though, I think if cysts got incrementally weaker the further away from a hive they are might also work. Say a cyst 1 connection from the hive would be strong like the ones on live version, but a cyst many rooms/connections away (thinking like cysts going out the the 2nd techpoint or 3rd RT) would be very fragile like the idea in the OP, with only a small fraction of the health. Maybe also have the further cysts produce less infestation, even.(I think Flayra toyed with this idea in one of the dev videos they put out).
Saying all other solutions are bad is just being ignorant, I wouldnt present that as a point to justify my position on something... I think there are other solutions that work better for reducing cyst spam, and most of the center around making the alien tech progressive, and resource intensive overall. By making it progressive and not one huge cost you can eliminate times early game where a comm may spam cysts because he cannot spend in on anything else at the time. While they still may be able to do this regardless of how its set up, it would always be resource intensive and slow their tech progression. I also did like the idea of a cyst being weaker the further it is from a hive.
Having them cost 2 tres and dying instantly makes it extremely easy to reslock an alien team, where they cannot re-cyst a harvester or even drop a new one. Ive seen how this plays in gathers and honestly the entire game is just kill the cysts, aliens gg out...
Overall I think its a better idea to adjust the problems which allow cyst spam, rather than adjust the cyst to correct the issue. Making it die in 15 lmg bullets is really frustrating for an alien comm, and the team at times as marines can just zerg cysts and its very difficult to stop them.
Definately the HP/cost is out of whack but I'd stop short of recommending specific values. The only thing I'm not sold on is cloaking cysts. It would be a little strange for them to be cloaked without access to a shade hive. And then if the cyst could cloak, why wouldn't the infestation also disappear as it does when a shade is built nearby? What might be cool is if the shade hive allowed an upgrade to cloak cysts (similar to the healing bed upgrade for crag hive)
For a while I have wanted to post about cysts & infestation, going right back to before drifters were repurposed (thanks worthy!). I want the game to convince me that the infestation is the primary enemy; the hive is the source of the infestation and the lifeforms are the infestations defence mechanisms. I know that's the back story, I just want the game to convince me it's true.
One feature improvement on cysts that I would like to see is that cysts just determine the direction in which infestation spreads. So, you place a cyst and infestation spreads out towards it. The cyst then remains 'unbuilt' (kind of like marine structures) until the infestation gets there, at which point the cyst starts building and concurrently the infestation spreads out in a circle. I think the effect would be much more 'polished' than the current design and it also decouples cyst placement speed from infestation speed. I think that then gets rid of the problem of cooldowns and such that interfere with the Kham getting infestation out to those early harvesters, while still allowing stuff to be balanced. Cyst placement effectively becomes part of a planning layer. It would mean that sometimes the marines would want to kill the upstream cyst from whence the infestation came, which is p. cool if you ask me...<strike>If</strike> Since we can't have dynamic infestation for 1.0, I think this would be a great compromise.
That's the main advantage of cysts cloaking imo. When the comm don't scan their are out of the game, so you don't need to care about them, which improves a lot the feel of the game. Having less dummy targets makes everything clearer and simpler.
I'm sure someone could come up with another solution though.
Cysts in general is an unintuitive and damn near impossible to balance idea, that should have only been a temporary fix to a problem that was then in place (Incomplete infestation model, it's far closer to completion now, i.e goes up walls) also, frucking frustrating to have to actually shout "dont attack cysts" to people so they can attack something, would be muchmore intuitive to have infestation die only to flamethrowers too, which would bring a tactical use BACK to the damn near useless weapon!
Scan: 5 tres (scanning in order to kill cysts should hurt rines eco aswell)
Nanoshield: 5 tres (they are just too spammable with 3 tres)
Nanoconstruct: 5 tres (just to be 3 tres) and nerfed the speed boost to 2x instead of 4x. There were a major problem in organized play that getting your RTs up just went too fast, aswell as nanoconstruct was just a no-brainer, you always used it. Now you have to think: is it worth it?
JP: 15pres (used to be 10pres)
Leap: 40 tres (now you have to think, is it worth getting early? We in archaea didnt get it at all for instance, we went for spikes and regen instead.
Round1:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag0ViRtYd20" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag0ViRtYd20</a>
Round 2:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdDvvrc5Eb8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdDvvrc5Eb8</a>
As of total I commanded about 40-50 PCWs, and ######loads of gathers. Of all those games I have played, these balance changes made by exertus has given me the most enjoyable experience to date. Even though there is ALOT of issues still to fix, and there alot of imbalances still, I cant help to feel that both sides always have a change to win the round. And this is thrilling. No spam, just pure fair PvP. Thanks exertus!