An idea to balance out early carapace.
EgoGamer
Join Date: 2012-06-21 Member: 153536Members, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Supporter
Join Date: 2012-06-21 Member: 153536Members, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Supporter
<div class="IPBDescription">Yet keep late-game skulks just as viable as they are now.</div>With all the alien structures now going through a growth and maturity phase, could the same be applied to alien upgrades?
For example, carapace has just been researched. The shell is still in it's infancy stage, so the buff it applies has a lesser effect. (say 33%)
When the shell reaches ~50% maturity you also gain 50% benefit. Remember these numbers are just examples.
Once the shell has fully matured, you gain the same benefit as you do now.
Perhaps the time for upgrade structures to reach maturity could be increased somewhat to give this effect a bigger impact.
This sort of harkens back to the tiered upgrades aliens had in NS1, and also provides a level of symmetry to marine upgrades whilst still keeping it asymmetrical.
It also forces commanders to consider if they want to spend resources on back-up chambers, as losing that shell could be an even more lethal blow to the aliens if it takes a minute or two to get the upgrade back to full power.
Any thoughts? Should I just sit down an be quiet? ;)
( I should really proof-read posts BEFORE hitting submit >>)
For example, carapace has just been researched. The shell is still in it's infancy stage, so the buff it applies has a lesser effect. (say 33%)
When the shell reaches ~50% maturity you also gain 50% benefit. Remember these numbers are just examples.
Once the shell has fully matured, you gain the same benefit as you do now.
Perhaps the time for upgrade structures to reach maturity could be increased somewhat to give this effect a bigger impact.
This sort of harkens back to the tiered upgrades aliens had in NS1, and also provides a level of symmetry to marine upgrades whilst still keeping it asymmetrical.
It also forces commanders to consider if they want to spend resources on back-up chambers, as losing that shell could be an even more lethal blow to the aliens if it takes a minute or two to get the upgrade back to full power.
Any thoughts? Should I just sit down an be quiet? ;)
( I should really proof-read posts BEFORE hitting submit >>)
Comments
The ones it could work for without much fiddling-
Cara- Armour value, I think the speed debuff works based off of a multiplier on the armour value so that would work/
Regen- Regen speed or time before it activates.
Adrenaline- increase energy rate
Celerity- Increase speed
Feint Death- Allow players to move faster while feigning, or remain in the feign state for a longer period of time.
Camoflauge- Shorter cloak time?
As for the rest of the upgrades you mentioned, that's how they scaled in NS1. :) With the exception of regen, which provided more health per tick rather than shorter gaps between ticks.
yeah, that's what i also like, but what happens when the carapace shell gets destroyed? quite a big set back
If you're confident your team can catch any marines leaks you can stick with one chamber per upgrade, but if you're not sure then you may want to invest in the same structure+upgrade in a different hive.
I'm not sure if it's possible to evolve two carapace shells at once in the current build, but I suspect that wouldn't take too much tweaking to implement.
+1
as many of you point out, the game starts and skulks take 9 bullets. with carapace, as i understand, its 17 bullets (right? armor is 2x health? 70/10 to 70/50)
now, yes this is a drastic change, that happens early in the game and stays throughout without improving.
but think about how the game goes: in the first minutes, the marines all run out and and try to capture territory, and the skulks go and try to prevent them from expanding. it is during those critical few minutes that they don't have carapace in which the course of the game is determined: if the marines capture 4 RTs, they have a real chance at winning.
AND THEN, the aliens get carapace. if the marines don't have more than 3 RTs at this point, they're done probably. but if they do, it is the comm's job to make sure that the marines have shotguns, mines, or weapons 1 so that they can overcome the onslaught of carapace skulks. with forward armories, plus shotguns and mines, this is doable.
then in the late game, the aliens have enough options to not use carapace if they don't want
ok i'm not sure where i was going with this. basically, people keep saying that its unfair to give the kahraa a huge, flat bonus to survivability that early in the game that never gets better, but i think that huge shifts in balance from researches such as carapace, leap, and blink are fun challenges for the marines to deal with with discipline and coordination.
Besides, having a squad of two marines sneek into your base and kill cara right now is annoying, but with the 'maturity system' that could cost aliens the game as it will take them [build time of shell]+[buildtime of carapace]+[maturing of carapace] and that could easily be 5min.
You could just untie the maturity of the upgrade from the maturity of the chamber then. Have it so no matter how mature the upgrade is it can be replaced just as quickly as now, have it resume maturation from where it left off.
The ones it could work for without much fiddling-
Cara- Armour value, I think the speed debuff works based off of a multiplier on the armour value so that would work/
Regen- Regen speed or time before it activates.
Adrenaline- increase energy rate
Celerity- Increase speed
Feint Death- Allow players to move faster while feigning, or remain in the feign state for a longer period of time.
Camoflauge- Shorter cloak time?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Silence would make you less and less noisy until you're completely silent?
I really like this idea.
A big +1 from here.
I get silence rarely enough as is, I don't see myself every wanting an upgrade that makes me slightly less noisy.
<!--quoteo(post=1961638:date=Aug 12 2012, 10:53 PM:name=Scrajm)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Scrajm @ Aug 12 2012, 10:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1961638"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No.. just NO. We already had time as a factor with hive maturity process. And it was just bad. This game is about PvP and res nodes resources. Dropping a shell and getting more and more cara throughout the game without putting any more res into it makes the game revolve around time instead of res nodes. Just waiting and become stronger is not a good game feature.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To be honest I don't like the current and past maturity functionality for the reasons you stated, however the OP's suggestion is probably the best idea I've seen to support its role in the game, and would encourage the choice of resource expenditure between backing up your original upgrade chambers or pushing on for more.
<!--quoteo(post=1961638:date=Aug 12 2012, 10:53 PM:name=Scrajm)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Scrajm @ Aug 12 2012, 10:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1961638"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I like supsus idea that you have to upgrade carapace several times instead<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Singling out carapace as a multi-tiered upgrade just makes the problem with Carapace's domination even stronger.
Alternatively, tying the upgrade tier system to the number of alien hives also appears to be a very valid option, as that introduces the need for additional map control and res expenditure, while also avoiding the issue with a gradually increasing and unpredictable variable that would come from boosting the upgrades via maturation.
Upgrades would be less effective than they are now off one hive, around what they are now(skulk cara excluded) from 2 and would give aliens more of an advantage approaching the third and fourth hives. Aliens have a big problem right now with being too powerful at the start and too weak in the late game should they get that far in before killing off the marine base.
Hive costs would need to be raised given both the extra power this would give them, and to encourage alien teams to actually get upgrades in the beginning instead of it always being a better option to rush for that second hive.
losing a hive is usually a big blow for the aliens: no leap, blink, one evolution less... you already see a lot of people giving up at that point. i dont think the power of that last evolution should be lowered as well then, it's just too much on one card.
as for binding it to hive maturity:
this sounds fine with me. getting your second hive up early will still be very useful (also adds faster maturity for evolutions) and you will still have a specific disadvantage if you just let a hive die and rebuild it right away. still, you can have a powerful evolution later in the game, even if you lost your second hive: it doesn't feel like you were completely thrown back to the beginning of the game.
as for binding it to upgrade structures:
with a massive health buff for those structures, this might work: it could play out similar to taking down an advanced armory. compared to hive maturity it solves two issues:
1. you cannot just wait for the hive to mature, then placing the (remaining) upgrade structures (= instant full benefit, kinda defeats the purpose of this concept)
2. when binding it to hive maturity, what happens if the hive goes down but the upgrade structures are still alive?
however, binding it to the hive seems more comfortable at an intutive basis somehow. but i guess this is due to the fact that the upgrade structures can be taken down rather easily at the current state.
as for creating redundant upgrade-structures as backup: i'd prefer a kham to add diversity instead, so this is not a good mechanic to promote imo. but i am confident that these backups will not be created before adding at least a few more choices for the players.
That hidden modifier was removed, because hidden modifiers suck, but nothing replaced it. So now were stuck with this problem that carapace seems too strong early game but too weak late game. Well duh, of course it feels that way, we're missing that hidden armor modifier that scaled up as the game progressed!
Now instead trying to jury rig carapace into providing both aspects at once, a scaling improvement as the game progresses and a flat buff, how about just reintroducing the modifier but making it visible instead of hidden? Make it show up on the alien ui like marine armor upgrades, or even make it a research that the khamm needs to do.
Is there a reason that the devs don't want to re add that hidden multiplier for the armor that the hives gave in ns1?
What about a re-searchable carapace like someone mentioned but it is limited by the amount of hives you have...
Base level Carapace= 1 Hive
Second Tier = 2 Hives
Third Tier = 3 Hives
and so on..
I'd also like to see this type of thing with the other abilities (adren, feint, regen). It gives the Khamm a lot more strategy to work with in how he researches and prioritizes certain abilities...
Right now in 216 without the ability to stack abilities from the same hive (ie no cara/regen combined) there are clearly superior upgrade combinations and it leaves little room for improvisation. What I mean by that is first upgrade should almost definitely be Cara, second adrena and third feign death. These 3 abilities will work for just about any lifeforms and are by far the superior choices with only a few exceptions (ie feign death is stupid for Onos right now, Silence or Cloak is a better choice).
(Before I get flamed for that last bit, I'm talking basic pub strategy and have no experience in competitive, yet)