Shade viability
elodea
Editlodea Join Date: 2009-06-20 Member: 67877Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Editlodea Join Date: 2009-06-20 Member: 67877Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1968949:date=Aug 31 2012, 03:37 AM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Aug 31 2012, 03:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1968949"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Agreed that shades can use some love to make them a little more useful. However, that may have to wait until post 1.0. If Shades are always the last structure to be built still at release, that is not the end of the world, and at this point we need to pick our battles in order to get this game released.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><u><b>The Problem</b></u><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
The problem with shade isn't so much that it's underpowered. Its just that the timings for passive alien kham play result in crag being the best choice at 2nd hive regardless of first hive upgrade choice. By passive i mean one that aims to spend all res on getting upgrades/pres instead of some active strategy with whips, drifters, forward support structures etc. Because of the high risk/probability of 2 hive vs 2 cc logjam, and the difficulty in getting that 3rd hive up in evenly matched games (no hive teleport, and CC blocking), the viable upgrade choices are either shift to crag, or shade to crag, and never shift to shade or shade to shift.
The question then is which upgrade path is preferred first and why? Shade or shift? I don't doubt we see many games go shift first because of the following advantages it has over shade
<b>a)</b> While not as powerful early game, shift has longevity and value throughout early to late due to dual usefulness of cele/adren.
<b>b)</b> Its tried and tested with carry over preferences from NS1
<b>c)</b> Shade is on-par if not more useful than shift in early game (silence is huge), but its dependance on silence and hallu play sees its usefulness decrease drastically the longer a game goes on for. Feign is really only good for fades and people are catching on quickly how to kill fades coming out of feign.
When we consider the nature of pub games where the alien kham is usually very passive and not confident in making aggressive moves with ai units etc., we see that shift provides the best matching utility.
<b><u><!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->Potential solutions<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></u></b>
How might we help shade not be picked last? Ensure its viability as a 2nd hive upgrade by making it as useful throughout early to late. Generally, we want shade/shift to be viable instead of needing crag to counter increasing marine damage. These are all i can think of for now in descending importance.
<strike><b>1)</b> Improve the shader for moving under cloak. Its way too obvious</strike> Done!
<b>2a)</b> scent of fear / focus instead of feign. Focus would also solve any armoury humping issues. Remove feign from game (its either entirely useless or overpowered situationally) or move it to DC as redemption.
<b>2b)</b> sof/focus instead of silence. Ability to project shade cloak onto areas of the map for limited duration - trading off local cloak to do so. Potentially overpowered depending on implementation, but it solves our late game shade weakness of it being a static defensive effect that is eventually located and countered. Move silence to shift as replacement for hypermutation
<b>3)</b> Unit queuing for hallucinations
<b>4)</b> Increase marine spawn time and address spawn waves to make it less high burst deathmatch and more thinking man's shooter.
<b>5)</b> Drifters remain cloaked while moving unless there is an obs/scan/touched by marine
<b>6)</b> Ink cloud on shade death
<b>7)</b> Potentially change shotgun damage back to light and tweak the numbers to ensure they're still reliably one shotting 30 cara skulks with point blanks. Might also help with our lerk needing cara problem.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><u><b>The Problem</b></u><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
The problem with shade isn't so much that it's underpowered. Its just that the timings for passive alien kham play result in crag being the best choice at 2nd hive regardless of first hive upgrade choice. By passive i mean one that aims to spend all res on getting upgrades/pres instead of some active strategy with whips, drifters, forward support structures etc. Because of the high risk/probability of 2 hive vs 2 cc logjam, and the difficulty in getting that 3rd hive up in evenly matched games (no hive teleport, and CC blocking), the viable upgrade choices are either shift to crag, or shade to crag, and never shift to shade or shade to shift.
The question then is which upgrade path is preferred first and why? Shade or shift? I don't doubt we see many games go shift first because of the following advantages it has over shade
<b>a)</b> While not as powerful early game, shift has longevity and value throughout early to late due to dual usefulness of cele/adren.
<b>b)</b> Its tried and tested with carry over preferences from NS1
<b>c)</b> Shade is on-par if not more useful than shift in early game (silence is huge), but its dependance on silence and hallu play sees its usefulness decrease drastically the longer a game goes on for. Feign is really only good for fades and people are catching on quickly how to kill fades coming out of feign.
When we consider the nature of pub games where the alien kham is usually very passive and not confident in making aggressive moves with ai units etc., we see that shift provides the best matching utility.
<b><u><!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->Potential solutions<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></u></b>
How might we help shade not be picked last? Ensure its viability as a 2nd hive upgrade by making it as useful throughout early to late. Generally, we want shade/shift to be viable instead of needing crag to counter increasing marine damage. These are all i can think of for now in descending importance.
<strike><b>1)</b> Improve the shader for moving under cloak. Its way too obvious</strike> Done!
<b>2a)</b> scent of fear / focus instead of feign. Focus would also solve any armoury humping issues. Remove feign from game (its either entirely useless or overpowered situationally) or move it to DC as redemption.
<b>2b)</b> sof/focus instead of silence. Ability to project shade cloak onto areas of the map for limited duration - trading off local cloak to do so. Potentially overpowered depending on implementation, but it solves our late game shade weakness of it being a static defensive effect that is eventually located and countered. Move silence to shift as replacement for hypermutation
<b>3)</b> Unit queuing for hallucinations
<b>4)</b> Increase marine spawn time and address spawn waves to make it less high burst deathmatch and more thinking man's shooter.
<b>5)</b> Drifters remain cloaked while moving unless there is an obs/scan/touched by marine
<b>6)</b> Ink cloud on shade death
<b>7)</b> Potentially change shotgun damage back to light and tweak the numbers to ensure they're still reliably one shotting 30 cara skulks with point blanks. Might also help with our lerk needing cara problem.
Comments
I used it sometimes and the marines didn't see me even while moving (some did). I think it works like the drifter cloak shader now, making you look like a ghost.
Here are some screens -> find the skulk.
<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/81802662/NS2%202012-08-30%2021-03-44-50.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/81802662/NS2%202012-08-30%2021-03-46-46.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/81802662/NS2%202012-08-30%2021-03-48-00.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/81802662/NS2%202012-08-30%2021-03-49-98.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/81802662/NS2%202012-08-30%2021-04-02-84.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
you will get 100% invisibility when standing still
Oh thats great, didn't even realise.
<u>2a) scent of fear / focus instead of feign. Focus would also solve any armoury humping issues. Remove feign from game (its either entirely useless or overpowered situationally) or move it to DC as redemption.</u>
Focus would also greatly improve ambushing/cloaked skulk gameplay. Out of curiosity, would Focus increase the energy cost of attacks? Without doing so, it effectively halves your energy costs for the same DPS (albeit requiring more aim in the process) if implemented in the classic fashion (double damage, half ROF).
Another possibility for Focus would be for it to make alien attacks do Heavy damage rather than trading ROF for damage (or maybe a bit of both). Especially in the later game when marines are rolling armor 2/3 and exosuits, this would keep Focus a viable upgrade (and therefore one worth taking).
<u>2b) sof/focus instead of silence. Ability to project shade cloak onto areas of the map for limited duration - trading off local cloak to do so. Potentially overpowered depending on implementation, but it solves our late game shade weakness of it being a static defensive effect that is eventually located and countered. Move silence to shift as replacement for hypermutation</u>
Putting silence on movement is sensible, and would also allow for amusing sneaky upgrade combinations in the midgame.
One of the things that made the Sensory Tower viable in NS1 was ninja gorge placement in vents above/along hallways, up on the pipes on the ceiling, and all those other weird spots that kept it out of the line of fire, while still letting it cloak a room. This also allowed for offensive use, with ninja placement that wouldn't immediately be found and destroyed setting up for an invisible rush into an occupied point. NS2's infestation mechanic combined with the inability of Khamms to place structures in almost any sneaky spot (cyst chains down vents, along ceilings, on the sides of raceways, etc) doesn't greatly hurt Crag farming or forward Shift usage for energy boosts/Hatching, but greatly impairs Shades as they need to be kept right next to the action to really do much good. Letting them "project" that field, either by "casting" it in another location, or by giving them a choice between "proximity" (the current sphere of influence) or "directed" (projecting an arc of effect in one direction with increased range) would be a massive improvement to the Shade's effectiveness and offensive utility.
<u>3) Unit queuing for hallucinations</u>
I see this becoming even more important when Babblers finally make it in; both will produce a distracting NPC, but the Babblers will actually do damage.
<u>4) Increase marine spawn time and address spawn waves to make it less high burst deathmatch and more thinking man's shooter.</u>
Agreed; it'll slightly increase the cost of dying for marines, and make slightly slower "ambush" play more beneficial to the aliens.
<u>5) Drifters remain cloaked while moving unless there is an obs/scan/touched by marine</u>
The way I read this is "drifters remain unchanged, unless you've got a Shade hive, in which case they're cloaked all the time." Is that about right? Because that sounds nifty to me.
<u>6) Ink cloud on shade death</u>
Also sounds good; a subtle buff to the tower.
<u>7) Potentially change shotgun damage back to light and tweak the numbers to ensure they're still reliably one shotting 30 cara skulks with point blanks. Might also help with our lerk needing cara problem.</u>
Is this intended to reduce shotgun dominance but allow them to still counter ambush skulks? Seems reasonable.
My suggestions:
<u>8) Lower the cost of the Shade.</u>
Small numbers of Crags are usually stashed in a farm somewhere near the front lines, or somewhere marines have a hard time accessing, to make a 'healing base' for aliens to return to. While this requires the alien to leave the front line to heal, every life form is capable of fairly rapid movement one way or another, and so a few crags stashed away somewhere secure has a pretty low opportunity cost for the aliens. Shift usage is similarly focused: you drop one at a hive if you're going to be using Echo. You drop one at a forward base that's about to be used for bilebombing or quick hit-and-run with fades or so you can Hatch eggs right outside the base. There's very limited numbers of Crags/Shifts required for either of these strategies, and the locations you put them in are typically protected nooks where they're unlikely to get destroyed.
Shades, on the other hand, really start to shine when you get good coverage with them. Marines run right by cysts they can't see. Chance encounters with skulks won't start out with the skulk at the far end of a hallway. Small crag farms can be hidden away in weird spots because they're invisible. This means that in order to get good performance out of the Shades you've unlocked by going Shade hive, you end up spending a lot of resources, especially when you start trying to use them offensively where they get found and shredded fairly often. It's very hard to justify that offensive use, as the effect of the Shade disappears as soon as the player starts attacking.
<u>9) Improve Hydras target tracking/accuracy/damage/toughness/overall effectiveness, uncapping the max number placeable now that they cost pres. This might be met with an increased pres cost.</u>
Shades are most commonly deployed in a defensive capacity, to make frontline bases annoying to fight in for marines. You can't see the Kharaa, there might be cloaked structures you miss during the fight, and it's embarassing to get killed by a whip hanging out in the open. The primary defensive structure of the Kharaa is the next-to-useless Hydra. I understand that there's a desire to avoid turret/hydra farms, but the marines have a LOT of hard counters to farming not too far down any of their research trees (ARCs, grenade launchers, and Exosuits are some of the things that come to mind). Trying to fight skulks in a cloaked room where a few hydras are invisible on the ceiling should be hard, but the current Hydra is next to useless, and so takes away from the usefulness of the Shade.
<u>10) Give Hive Sight back to aliens, within the radius or LOS of the Shade</u>
Hive Sight was removed because it impaired pushes into alien territory. Returning it to upgraded alien territory (namely, that territory covered by a Shade) would improve the value of the Shade in another subtle fashion.
<u>11) Reintroduce the Gorge being able to help with ninja placement.</u>
I'm going to start a seperate post for this, but it benefits the Shade especially. There's two possible implementations: let the gorge place cysts for Pres again (growing Infestation into interesting places so that Khamms can then put structures like the Shade on them), or if there's a true desire to separate Pres and Tres economies, allow the gorge to place "blank" structures (my name suggestion is "metastases," the medical term for cancerous tumors that develop away from the site of origin) which the Khamm can click on and upgrade (for Tres) to cysts, Shades, or whatever they want. This would allow for more aggressive/forward placement of Shades in places that let it affect where the combat is going to be happening, without trying to grow a structure in the middle of a marine base.
edit: closing formatting tags helps
I used it sometimes and the marines didn't see me even while moving (some did). I think it works like the drifter cloak shader now, making you look like a ghost.
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you will get 100% invisibility when standing still<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Doesn't matter unless I get 100% invis while moving full (non-celerity) speed like in NS1.
Being able to hide in plain sight is kinda useful, but I can already do that by hiding in the corners and ceilings. Being able to sneak up undetected and get a free bite in is completely different.
EDIT: other reasons SC worked in niches for NS1. Focus, and forward Scent of Fear due to hidden SC Chambers around the map. SoF as an upgrade also helped as a Lerk so you could setup your ambushes and time your gassing.
Being able to hide in plain sight is kinda useful, but I can already do that by hiding in the corners and ceilings. Being able to sneak up undetected and get a free bite in is completely different.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't know, I think people should try it more first.
This cat shows you how to use cloak.
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I do think that feign needs replacing with something though, focus would be nice but it doesnt really fit in with the deception aspect. We currently have visual deception (camo), audio deception (silence) so what could we add in to that?