Why the NS:Combat alien upgrade system is a good idea for NS2
Idleray
Join Date: 2012-10-04 Member: 161464Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-10-04 Member: 161464Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">Don't laugh, with a bit of balance this could work...</div>Part of the appeal of playing NS:C was the fact that you could play as a regeneration/carapace/celerity/adrenaline/focus super-skulk or super-fade. It was the opportunity - as an Alien player - to finally unlock the potential of your favourite alien classes by heaping on whatever number of upgrades you wished regardless of the choices of your other teammates.
Of course, it was also degenerate and unbalanced as it essentially gave you a god-mode to endlessly wail on the opposing marine team. However I think there is a fundamental reason why this upgrade system was fun and it can be distilled and integrated into NS2.
In both NS1 Classic and NS2 the first upgrade choices for the alien team is involuntarily made for you: either by the team gorges or Alien commander. We still have the situation of you being forced to use an upgrade that might not suit your play-style. For example, I hate using celerity due to the way the excess speed messes up with my control, and I usually forego it even if it is free (I've been on the top of the K:D list enough times doing this that I'm sure that celerity doesn't give an unconditional boost to your skulk effectiveness).
If i wanted to get adren instead of celerity, but my commander has only researched celerity, why shouldn't I be allowed to pay a penalty in the form of a resource fee to get adren instead? And furthermore, if both carapace and regeneration are researched, why am I denied the choice of getting both of them for a suitably balanced resource cost?
The way I see it this system has a number of benefits:
1. It allows for a more customized experience for alien players, which is especially important considering that there will soon be an <b>influx of newcomers to whom the alien playstyle is completely, well, "alien"</b>. Any elements of customization would help to make for a more inviting, accessible experience, in my opinion. If newbie A really likes the idea of cloaking and sneaking up to marines why should they be forced to get an upgrade like celerity every time which may well serve to make them even more disoriented?
2. It gives players an outlet for their p-res, if they aren't confident of their fading or onosing skills. If I want to be a dedicated lerk spore-bomber, then I may well want all the tools that help me become more effective, regardless of the resource cost. I would be fully ok if I had to pay 10, even 20 res to stack, say, adrenaline on top of celerity or carapace on top of regeneration. Since this goes away after death anyway(unlike NS combat), it would be balanced, in my opinion.
Of course, these "res for upgrade" costs would have to be balanced, but I think the basic idea of being able to "customize your alien to suit your playing style" would be a neat addition.
NOTE: I'm not proposing doing away with alien tech structures. For example actually giving people the ability to get cloak when your Commander gets the Crag line of upgrades first would probably be overdoing it. I'm just saying if the Commander gets a Crag and gets a carapace shell first, perhaps individual aliens should be given the choice of getting
a. carapace for free (as it is now)
b. regeneration for a cost
c. Both for an even higher cost, possibly scaling with what lifeform you're getting them on.
Of course, it was also degenerate and unbalanced as it essentially gave you a god-mode to endlessly wail on the opposing marine team. However I think there is a fundamental reason why this upgrade system was fun and it can be distilled and integrated into NS2.
In both NS1 Classic and NS2 the first upgrade choices for the alien team is involuntarily made for you: either by the team gorges or Alien commander. We still have the situation of you being forced to use an upgrade that might not suit your play-style. For example, I hate using celerity due to the way the excess speed messes up with my control, and I usually forego it even if it is free (I've been on the top of the K:D list enough times doing this that I'm sure that celerity doesn't give an unconditional boost to your skulk effectiveness).
If i wanted to get adren instead of celerity, but my commander has only researched celerity, why shouldn't I be allowed to pay a penalty in the form of a resource fee to get adren instead? And furthermore, if both carapace and regeneration are researched, why am I denied the choice of getting both of them for a suitably balanced resource cost?
The way I see it this system has a number of benefits:
1. It allows for a more customized experience for alien players, which is especially important considering that there will soon be an <b>influx of newcomers to whom the alien playstyle is completely, well, "alien"</b>. Any elements of customization would help to make for a more inviting, accessible experience, in my opinion. If newbie A really likes the idea of cloaking and sneaking up to marines why should they be forced to get an upgrade like celerity every time which may well serve to make them even more disoriented?
2. It gives players an outlet for their p-res, if they aren't confident of their fading or onosing skills. If I want to be a dedicated lerk spore-bomber, then I may well want all the tools that help me become more effective, regardless of the resource cost. I would be fully ok if I had to pay 10, even 20 res to stack, say, adrenaline on top of celerity or carapace on top of regeneration. Since this goes away after death anyway(unlike NS combat), it would be balanced, in my opinion.
Of course, these "res for upgrade" costs would have to be balanced, but I think the basic idea of being able to "customize your alien to suit your playing style" would be a neat addition.
NOTE: I'm not proposing doing away with alien tech structures. For example actually giving people the ability to get cloak when your Commander gets the Crag line of upgrades first would probably be overdoing it. I'm just saying if the Commander gets a Crag and gets a carapace shell first, perhaps individual aliens should be given the choice of getting
a. carapace for free (as it is now)
b. regeneration for a cost
c. Both for an even higher cost, possibly scaling with what lifeform you're getting them on.
Comments
Secondly, and more importantly, its a balance issue. I'm guessing that the ability to take both carapace and regeneration, for example, was removed because it was too powerful. This isn't really an issue of it not costing enough resources. Balance cannot be established by simply increasing the resource cost. For example, if the Onos costs 75 res, would a new life form, 33% more powerful than the current Onos, be balanced if its price was 100 resources? I don't think it would be. Eventually you just get too much power in one location.
Its also unappealing that this multiple upgrades in one "branch" thing pretty much only applies to regeneration and carapace. I can think of basically no other situations where you would want it. That puts pressure on the devs to not only make it so that every single upgrade is balanced in relation to every other upgrade, but that every combination of upgrades is balanced in relation to every other combination.
As for being able to get upgrades that your comm hasn't explicitly researched; why have a commander at all if his choices have negligible impact on his players?
Don't dismiss the NS1 Classic upgrade model so quickly. When a gorge built a chamber in NS1 you had the choice between three upgrades. For example the defence chamber unlocked Carapace, Regeneration and Redemption. However you could only pick one upgrade of each chamber. This allowed for some customization, but prevented OP combinations. I'd like to see a similar system in NS2.
UWE has been quite inconsequent in this area. On the one hand they gave marines the ability to buy their own equipment, because they want players to be able to decide how they play. On the other hand UWE made the alien upgrade system very restrictive, where every tiny upgrade has to be unlocked first. I find this especially unnecessary in the case of movement abilities like Leap and Blink.
Yeah. And spores. True, in NS1 you could choose between cele, adrenaline and silence with one chamber (3 of the same type to be effective). Now many commanders seem to forget that cele isn't enough.
By the way, I think upgrades are killed to easily. The commander just can't hide the chambers, that's really sad I think. Only two marines are needed to kill all the upgrades in one hive room, wehen they are good. Because we don't have hive teleport. Gorges in NS1 had great places in vents and so on to hide their chambers. Many vents even were designed to allow it (think of tanith).
Perhaps giving lifeforms the option to BUY one time use upgrades (such as blink/celerity/etc) would allow for a broader playing style. With upgrades becoming free to use once the commander has researched them.
You could perhaps see an early skulk rush for instance, with celerity or silence options. But I don't think people would like to see more rushes then we already do :P
But perhaps with the new sentrys coming in, this will be fine?
I love the idea of being able to have more control over how my lifeform plays. 2 res a piece for a one lifetime use upgrade could be really interesting, delaying fade/onos whilst having the advantage of leap or bile bomb.
I think the big issue with why aliens does feel a bit stale at the moment, is this inability to control how you want your lifeform to be. Without the obvious researching the commander does.
It would also help pubs.