Reduce Hive Death -> Buildable CC time
Xyth
Avatar Join Date: 2003-11-04 Member: 22312Members
Avatar Join Date: 2003-11-04 Member: 22312Members
To sell this idea I'll paint a picture for you.
Map is Veil, marines are losing and cornered into their start position; Aliens own the vast majority of the map and are just delaying before they launch their final attack. I'm sure you've all been there.
Somebody manages to sneak out to west junction and you drop a ninja PG while the aliens are getting ready to (finally) end the game. The order goes out and your team phases and you run your whole team into the unprotected cargo hive. The aliens realize what's going on, but not quite fast enough. They rush into your now unexpectedly abandoned base and start tearing down your only CC.
Their reaction is a bit too slow and the cargo hive pops first. No problem they have two remaining and your last CC is about to drop.
You do the unexpected and drop a CC and a (carefully placed) obs into Cargo in the final seconds. Your main CC pops but to the complete surprise of the alien team the game doesn't end.
By now your few remaining marines are opening fire on the pipeline hive while the whole alien team is scrambling back to defend their quickly dwindling tech points.
What happens next? Pipeline pops and you beacon to cargo just as the whole alien team shows up? Try to suicide rush sub-access and steal victory from the proverbial claws of defeat?
The aliens still own every RT on the map, maybe they still have full upgrades, probably a full squad of higher lifeforms. But, their negligence has now caused a very real chance of them losing the match if their last hive falls.
Even if the marines still lose, at least they managed to put up an actual fight. GG for sure right?
No.
This is not possible. It takes at minimum 1 minute (tested this in explore mode multiple times) from hive death to being able to place a command chair on the tech point (Can't build building on infestation! But I don't even see any?!....). As long as this remains true this kind of tactical turn-around will never occur. Giving the Aliens a full minute to kill that last CC before you can drop one on their now dead hive is an ETERNITY.
The cream on the cake is that Aliens don't suffer from this at all! As long as they have infestation on the tech point (cyst up to it while the skulks munch it to death) they can drop a hive immediately after the CC explodes, no delay at all.
It's just not fair at all that the Aliens can repopulate tech points in the final minutes of a close fought skin-of-your-teeth match (my favorite type) so much faster (infinitely faster in fact) than marines can. It puts marines at a real disadvantage and removes any possibility of All-in base trading speed plays.
Please, UWE, let me place Command Chairs on tech points that are inside infestation.
Thanks.
Map is Veil, marines are losing and cornered into their start position; Aliens own the vast majority of the map and are just delaying before they launch their final attack. I'm sure you've all been there.
Somebody manages to sneak out to west junction and you drop a ninja PG while the aliens are getting ready to (finally) end the game. The order goes out and your team phases and you run your whole team into the unprotected cargo hive. The aliens realize what's going on, but not quite fast enough. They rush into your now unexpectedly abandoned base and start tearing down your only CC.
Their reaction is a bit too slow and the cargo hive pops first. No problem they have two remaining and your last CC is about to drop.
You do the unexpected and drop a CC and a (carefully placed) obs into Cargo in the final seconds. Your main CC pops but to the complete surprise of the alien team the game doesn't end.
By now your few remaining marines are opening fire on the pipeline hive while the whole alien team is scrambling back to defend their quickly dwindling tech points.
What happens next? Pipeline pops and you beacon to cargo just as the whole alien team shows up? Try to suicide rush sub-access and steal victory from the proverbial claws of defeat?
The aliens still own every RT on the map, maybe they still have full upgrades, probably a full squad of higher lifeforms. But, their negligence has now caused a very real chance of them losing the match if their last hive falls.
Even if the marines still lose, at least they managed to put up an actual fight. GG for sure right?
No.
This is not possible. It takes at minimum 1 minute (tested this in explore mode multiple times) from hive death to being able to place a command chair on the tech point (Can't build building on infestation! But I don't even see any?!....). As long as this remains true this kind of tactical turn-around will never occur. Giving the Aliens a full minute to kill that last CC before you can drop one on their now dead hive is an ETERNITY.
The cream on the cake is that Aliens don't suffer from this at all! As long as they have infestation on the tech point (cyst up to it while the skulks munch it to death) they can drop a hive immediately after the CC explodes, no delay at all.
It's just not fair at all that the Aliens can repopulate tech points in the final minutes of a close fought skin-of-your-teeth match (my favorite type) so much faster (infinitely faster in fact) than marines can. It puts marines at a real disadvantage and removes any possibility of All-in base trading speed plays.
Please, UWE, let me place Command Chairs on tech points that are inside infestation.
Thanks.
Comments
This would also buff the flamethrower, which is not very good at the moment I find.
However, the game might turn into hop-scotch? With both teams jumping about with the tech points?
Either way, It's something to consider.
PS: did you agree your own post?
matches where we 'swap' positions are usually considered great matches. (yes, I do infact ask this question ingame)
talking pugs of course.
it would also make ninja PGs easier.
I would say do not reduce buildtime, but simply show on the map to the kham, something is happening.
Thanks for the support guys but I gotta disagree with you both.
The flamethrower requirement would just add a superfluous level of complexity to this strategy. The discussion if flamethrowers should remove infestation in general warrants an entire other thread I think.
Allowing buildings on infestation is definitely not what I'm asking for here. It's an interesting idea but it would drastically alter how the game works and require extensive playtesting due to the real possibility of abuses and unfair strategies.
To discuss the implications of this idea further lets take an abstract look at it:
In the end game, the marines must push out from their main base to win. If 100% of their army leaves their is no static defence they can put up capable of stopping an alien rush that jeopardizes your CC and thus puts you in danger of suddenly losing the game.
There are three obvious choices then to counter this:
1) You leave behind a marine, possibly an exo, to hold off or slow these sudden rushes.
+This is a problem because, if both armies are evenly matched, you can't spare that extra man! Thus, this is only a viable strategy if the marines have sufficiently overwhelming force in the first place: completely defeating the point of having a evenly balanced match
2) You play defensive and crush the aliens higher lifeforms until they don't have enough res to put up a good fight and you death march them.
+Again, this strat requires the marines have overwhelming force when they finally push out of base. Every alien who fights this knows how lame and unfun an unstoppable death-march is.
3) You push out and beacon back when they try to hit your base
+This is the one that is directly effected by my proposed change so Ill talk more about it.
First, this marginalizes the utility of a mechanized army as your ARCs/EXOs will be left behind and vulnerable. This is not entirely unreasonable; infact it is somewhat balanced.
My complaint however is that there is no choice.
Even if you realistically don't need those armories/ips/extractors you still have to beacon. You have to beacon because if you don't and that CC drops the end-game trigger fires.
It doesn't matter if they have a full onos squad and you still have full JPs/EXOs. The game will end and you are back in the ready room. Disappointing. Stupid. Lame.
My proposal adds another choice:
4) You drop a backup CC just as their hive dies (the timing is what's important here). Your main base goes down and now you're all-in
+At this point you have no main base which means no upgrades or IPs and possibly no commander. You are at a disadvantage but at least that stupid 'Marines Lose' picture hasn't ironically popped up inside your full-health EXO helmet.
Effectively this change opens up the possibility for the Marine Commander to make a conscious choice to decouple the outcome of the game from the status of your primary base(s).
This is done at great risk of course but that's the whole point of all-in maneuvers in any game.
Anybody remember the classic starcraft 1 professional match where the two teams are rushing to destroy each others bases first(ZvP I believe)? A probe escapes and drops a single pylon to prevent his sudden loss of the game. The announcers are flipping out as a random overlord wanders into sight range of it in the literal final seconds of the game. It was exciting to watch even after the fact.
This is the kind of close-fought game I dream of.
Why are we not allowed to do this?
So if you agree with me and want this idea integrated, we need to be proactive and figure out the abuses (ninja cc imba!!) that it could cause. I've brainstormed a few that ended up being non factors when analyzed.
1)Drastically diminishes the effectiveness of attacking the marine base to force a beacon and thus adds a great deal of power to a mechanized EXO/ARC army.
This is a good point, but a counter argument can easily be made.
First, the marine commander may still choose to beacon if he thinks the all-in move is unlikely to win, for this case it's just business as usual.
Second, if the commander chooses to follow the all-in choice and sacrifices main base he is weakening his army. The loss of upgrades and ability to respawn (at least temporarily) still makes the alien-base-rush a highly useful strategy. All that we are doing is giving the commander a choice of how to deal with the end-game bile-bomb rush (something which he/she doesn't have now. If he doesn't beacon, the game ends. Period.).
2)Dropping a CC into alien owned territory allows IP/Beacon/Hive delay abuses that are imba
This is harder to refute because I can't say for sure the sorts of creative tactics a good commander could come up with. Here are a few:
a)Marine sneaks into an alien owned tech point that is yet to hive drop. He builds the CC, then the power, then an obs. Commander beacons to whole marine team into the alien owned area.
-These one seems powerful at first glance until you realize it's more expensive and more fragile than if that marine had just built a phase. Thus, its effect on gameplay is null.
b)Marine ninjas a CC into the alien hive in order to force a time delay on the hive drop
-Same as before, the utility of just building a phase for this purpose and shooting the hive to death as it drops is much greater. The gameplay effect is null.
3)The End game turns into a merry-go-round of tech point trading and the aliens are at a disadvantage due to the hive having longer build times
This is probably the best and most interesting argument so lets look at it.
The time for CC->Power->IP->Marines is much shorter than Hive Maturity->Eggs->Skulks.
This means that the marines are able to get their reinforcements back on a base trade much faster than aliens, leading to imbalance.
The counter argument should be obvious though, aliens can spawn eggs at shifts which can be built fast (relative to hive maturity and CC->IP) and placed anywhere on the map. So this remains a mostly null point. More discussion on this point might be warranted.
Again, if you like this idea lets get discourse going on its impacts. You are welcome to post modifications to the idea but honestly, simple fixes are the best so I'd like avoid white-noise replies of "Make it build slower, make it take damage slowly in infestation, make it not allow purchase of proto upgrades, make it more expensive, etc etc etc".
The last thing Ill say in this post is how I came up with the idea.
I had brainstormed for awhile interesting marine strategies for those un-winnable moments and came up with the idea of dropping a CC in the dead-hive spot during your last push after abandoning main base.
I got the chance to try it on Thursday. End game on the map that has Turbine and Generator (forgot the name). Mixed EXO/JP army we take down Turbine hive. The aliens respond by bile-bomb rushing our obs. We are on one base anyway so defeat is imminent. I advise commander to not beacon us since that just prolongs to inevitable and guarantees the loss our last 2 EXOs, instead drop the CC here and we'll push generator hive and see what happens. He agrees. Obs goes down and the CC health bar pops up.
We start yelling at com DROP THE CC IN TURBINE, DROP IT NOW OR WE LOSE. Seconds drag on as the last CC is dying. Com finally pipes in after an eternity I CAN'T DROP IT YOU IDIOTS DIDN'T CLEAR THE CYSTS. Except we had. There's not an alien building left in the room. All that remains are a few tiny splotches of Hive generated infestation on the walls by where our CC would go.
The last CC pops and we are back in the Ready Room. A decked out group of JP marines, 2 Exo, 2 Onos and a hand-full of other lifeforms.
Two entire armies that never got to engage in glorious combat. Asinine is the only word to describe this outcome.
Lets say we allow this, marines kill a hive drop the CC, build it up and then... kill cysts and wait for the infestation to recede so they can build the IPs/obs/etc. Maybe the time that takes isn't an issue (unlike the time it takes to just place the CC).
At any rate I agree with the idea, but I also think it should be taken further as well.
I've had a baserace around refinery, we took out flow and smelting while they killed our top two hives, then before either of those could new spots could finish building they came down and killed pipe and then the still building flow and cornered us to the unbuilt smelting. This all WITH gorges.
Personally I think Veil is a horrible map to judge anything by. With only 4 tech points instead of 5 the map plays SIGNIFICANTLY differently than any other.
In all actuality, I'd say this could be solved by a dying hive dissolving any infestation below it. If any of the infestation belonged to cysts, it would simply grow back at its normal rate after a few seconds. The marines would have their window, and the alien commander could still otherwise deny building placement as usual.