Sewlek, please can you elaborate on "the commander is not able to connect cysts" - I read this as the gorge tunnel will entity will create infestation, but you cannot build additional cysts from it?
@Sewlek: Some ideas for things I would like to see tried:
Split up silence and camo again.
Silence LvL1: Jumping makes no sound. (Good for (wall)jumping skulks and lerks) Also bellyslide and shadow step are quiet.
Silence LvL2: Attacks make no sound.
Silence LvL3: Normal movement makes no sound. (Don't forget the screen-rumbling from the onos, or this upgrade isn't viable for it.)
Camo LvL1: Get 100% invisible when not moving.
Camo LvL2: Get 90% invisible when moving (also with full-speed!).
Camo LvL3: Stay 90% invisible even when hit / attacking.
Add LvL-Upgrade research-ables on Veil, Spur, Shell instead of the "place 3 buildings"-thing (right now every com will try to get to LvL3 as fast as possible. With research-ables you can add a research time, so you will see lower levels more often.)
Add bone-shield for the onos instead of "energy for health"
Couple egg-spawn-rate and marine-spawn-rate dynamically to the player count in the team. For example (Numbers need tweaking!):
Egg-respawn-time in seconds (per hive) = 16 - players on the alien team (This would be 1 egg every 8 seconds on a 16-player server.
Marine-respawn-time in seconds (per IP) = 2 + players on the marine team (This would be 10 seconds respawn time on an 16 player server)
With the right numbers, this will balance the game for low and high player-counts from 12 to 24 player servers.
Move ink-cloud to the mature shade (so aliens can't counter ARC-rushs by quickly placing shades, they need to plan ahead now)
Reintroduce the old hallucination ability of shades like it was in the beta (= Random alien sounds playing for near marines, fake-skulks appearing here and there) but this time make it an ability that has to be activated by the kham for t-res. (Now the shade keeps its hiding-purpose, but can be activated to support aliens in a near battle.)
Allow the shift to teleport eggs from a hive to its location for t-res. (It can only teleport eggs, if there are some available around a hive. This brings back its function as a forward spawn.)
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
necro, eggs can already be teleported
alien spawn already scales with player count (and marines have the option to build more IPs)
"energy for health" thats just a simplified description for bone shield
regarding shade ink: you already need to plan ahead. if you dont evolve a shade hive, you wont have shades (and no ink), same as in default ns2. i figured maturity takes away a lot of dynamic, and i dont want any abilities to depend on it anymore, we have build time for that.
regarding camou and silence: that sounds quite complex to me and would be too much work. it wont be very intuitive that depending on the silence level, certain sounds are muted. the reason why i merged silence and camou was not because the upgrades individually were too weak, it was because they serve the same purpose (stealth). i think the way they are currently scaling, in one upgrade, works quite ok. problem is just that silence is not reducing volume of sounds, which i cant do currently due to engine limitations, but thats subject to change in case i stick with the approach of scalable upgrades.
@Sewlek: Some ideas for things I would like to see tried:
Split up silence and camo again.
Silence LvL1: Jumping makes no sound. (Good for (wall)jumping skulks and lerks) Also bellyslide and shadow step are quiet.
Silence LvL2: Attacks make no sound.
Silence LvL3: Normal movement makes no sound. (Don't forget the screen-rumbling from the onos, or this upgrade isn't viable for it.)
Camo LvL1: Get 100% invisible when not moving.
Camo LvL2: Get 90% invisible when moving (also with full-speed!).
Camo LvL3: Stay 90% invisible even when hit / attacking.
Add LvL-Upgrade research-ables on Veil, Spur, Shell instead of the "place 3 buildings"-thing (right now every com will try to get to LvL3 as fast as possible. With research-ables you can add a research time, so you will see lower levels more often.)
Add bone-shield for the onos instead of "energy for health"
Couple egg-spawn-rate and marine-spawn-rate dynamically to the player count in the team. For example (Numbers need tweaking!):
Egg-respawn-time in seconds (per hive) = 16 - players on the alien team (This would be 1 egg every 8 seconds on a 16-player server.
Marine-respawn-time in seconds (per IP) = 2 + players on the marine team (This would be 10 seconds respawn time on an 16 player server)
With the right numbers, this will balance the game for low and high player-counts from 12 to 24 player servers.
Move ink-cloud to the mature shade (so aliens can't counter ARC-rushs by quickly placing shades, they need to plan ahead now)
Reintroduce the old hallucination ability of shades like it was in the beta (= Random alien sounds playing for near marines, fake-skulks appearing here and there) but this time make it an ability that has to be activated by the kham for t-res. (Now the shade keeps its hiding-purpose, but can be activated to support aliens in a near battle.)
Allow the shift to teleport eggs from a hive to its location for t-res. (It can only teleport eggs, if there are some available around a hive. This brings back its function as a forward spawn.)
-Why would jumping be muted on lvl 1 and walking only on lvl 3? It would make more sense for starters if the thing that makes more sound by nature (landing on the ground after a big jump) is harder to mute than something basic like walking.
-Researching the next level of structures is a good idea, since it adds some timed delay for getting the next level of an upgrade. Right now it's really just placing the three things down as fast as possible so that the lower levels basically don't exist at all.
However, that would mean that you have a big investment (45 res currently) in a single vulnerable upgrade structure. Though currently we have 30 res for losing Carapace, for instance, so it's not that far off. Maybe the structure could also gain some HP and armor with each upgrade.
-Not sure about the current implementation of Boneshield. Couldn't really try it out, but another played who did said that it was pretty useless. Not worth the loss of energy AND movement for the protection of HP. And you can't really use it for retreating/escaping either due to the slowdown. At best you can probably hope to sit it out until you get reinforcements.
-Hallucination on the Drifter is fine as it is. I really prefer it over the Shade ability, since it serves more to disguise which of the existing players are the real ones in a team fight. Though we no longer have fake structures. I didn't see the Hallucinations on the Shade in the old beta, but it sounds like something you can pretty easily recognize as trick after a few times.
On a side note did I not see any active ability getting added to the Drifter for Crag Hives. Rupture seems to be linked to the Shift Hive too.
The problem with having the upgrade levels on one structure is that the upgrade can be really easily sniped (see vanilla). Then we have the question of, do we allow the structure to be dropped again pre-upgraded with items already researched? If so that is counter intuitive to every other structure in the alien economy (hive etc). Using the # of chambers as the scalar works a bit better in this regard as getting the chamber sniped isn't as brutal.
necro, eggs can already be teleported
alien spawn already scales with player count (and marines have the option to build more IPs)
"energy for health" thats just a simplified description for bone shield
regarding shade ink: you already need to plan ahead. if you dont evolve a shade hive, you wont have shades (and no ink), same as in default ns2. i figured maturity takes away a lot of dynamic, and i dont want any abilities to depend on it anymore, we have build time for that.
regarding camou and silence: that sounds quite complex to me and would be too much work. it wont be very intuitive that depending on the silence level, certain sounds are muted. the reason why i merged silence and camou was not because the upgrades individually were too weak, it was because they serve the same purpose (stealth). i think the way they are currently scaling, in one upgrade, works quite ok. problem is just that silence is not reducing volume of sounds, which i cant do currently due to engine limitations, but thats subject to change in case i stick with the approach of scalable upgrades.
With scaling the alien spawn rate, I meant a dynamical system that counters the known "Aliens are underpowered in big servers but overpowered in small ones." While you have different values for egg-spawns in your mod, there seem to be only 2 fixed values. Not a dynamic system based on a simple formula, like I suggested.
I agree that maturation isn't really needed as mechanic.
But why would a LvL System for Silence and Camo be to difficult? The code should be already there. You just need to split it up for the different levels of the upgrade buildings. Maybe even easier than trying to get different volume levels with silence.
-Why would jumping be muted on lvl 1 and walking only on lvl 3? It would make more sense for starters if the thing that makes more sound by nature (landing on the ground after a big jump) is harder to mute than something basic like walking.
-[...] However, that would mean that you have a big investment (45 res currently) in a single vulnerable upgrade structure. Though currently we have 30 res for losing Carapace, for instance, so it's not that far off. Maybe the structure could also gain some HP and armor with each upgrade.
A health buff on upgrade sounds logical, yes. Also upgrades should be permanet and instantly when redropping a destroyed upgrade building like @Industry mentioned. It isn't this unintuitive, because abilities like Leap don't need to be re-researched too when redropping a hive. Overall I think upgrade-sniping adds to the tactical part of the game and shouldn't be to difficult but also not to punishing.
-Not sure about the current implementation of Boneshield. Couldn't really try it out, but another played who did said that it was pretty useless. Not worth the loss of energy AND movement for the protection of HP. And you can't really use it for retreating/escaping either due to the slowdown. At best you can probably hope to sit it out until you get reinforcements.
That was my thought. Energy for health may be theoretically the same, but I don't think it is as fun as a real Bone Shield. The marines can't really counter energy for health actively nor do they really see a difference. I think such a mechanic should have impact on how you battle the onos not just a simple temporary plus of health.
I didn't see the Hallucinations on the Shade in the old beta, but it sounds like something you can pretty easily recognize as trick after a few times.
This was not the case. You just heard skulks biting or moving randomly when near a shade. This could really scare the crap out of you. Looking around reveals fast, that it was only fake. But if your skulks are about to engage the marine, activating this ability could conceal the incoming real skulks. The problem in beta was, that this ability was perma-on. That defeated the purpose of the shade to hide stuff.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
you suggested a respawn system that scales with numbers of aliens, this is exactly what i coded in the mod. im not sure what else you are talking about. you have twice as many eggs with twice as many players (twice the respawn potential). the alien team faces exactly the same conditions in 12v12 as in 6v6, no more egg locking because of the spawn system failing with high player count. there are other elements in the game (range vs. melee combat) which tip balance in favor of marines further at 12v12, but those cant be measured. only statistics will tell if linear scaling is sufficient, or if another formula is required.
regarding bone shield: we tried once damage mitigation depending on attack direction (less accurate as what is described in the thread you linked, but quite the same result). the conclusion was that it made the onos overall too strong and it didnt introduce any skill for the onos, other than "always face the marines". the new approach in my mod tries to add skill in form of energy management for the onos, rather than introducing hit zones (which would be a new concept in ns2, no class in the game has damage zones). the numbers currently used for that ability are far from ideal, its quite difficult to test it playing against myself, and i rather have the very first version be underpowered than overpowered. a very much appreciate discussions about this ability
Split up silence and camo again.
Silence LvL1: Jumping makes no sound. (Good for (wall)jumping skulks and lerks) Also bellyslide and shadow step are quiet.
Silence LvL2: Attacks make no sound.
Silence LvL3: Normal movement makes no sound. (Don't forget the screen-rumbling from the onos, or this upgrade isn't viable for it.)
Camo LvL1: Get 100% invisible when not moving.
Camo LvL2: Get 90% invisible when moving (also with full-speed!).
Camo LvL3: Stay 90% invisible even when hit / attacking.
I don't see how this would in any way make these upgrades competitive. Silence lvl 3 is just NS2 vanilla silence and Camo level 3 sounds like it would still be poor as it's really not that hard to pick up even 90% invisibility. As it stands, phantom is downright awesome and actually a worthy competitor of carapace and celerity. All shade needs now is a second upgrade.
I love the idea behind bone shield, can't comment much on it yet though.
you suggested a respawn system that scales with numbers of aliens, this is exactly what i coded in the mod. im not sure what else you are talking about.
It isn't clear from the description in the change log that there is linear interpolation involved, so he assumed it to have the egg spawn rate for 12vs12 only kick in once you actually have 12 players on your team.
you suggested a respawn system that scales with numbers of aliens, this is exactly what i coded in the mod. im not sure what else you are talking about. you have twice as many eggs with twice as many players (twice the respawn potential). the alien team faces exactly the same conditions in 12v12 as in 6v6, no more egg locking because of the spawn system failing with high player count. there are other elements in the game (range vs. melee combat) which tip balance in favor of marines further at 12v12, but those cant be measured. only statistics will tell if linear scaling is sufficient, or if another formula is required.
Oh, ok. CrushaK is right. I assumed it would have only 2 values. Nice to hear that it is actually dynamic. And the balance differences caused by range vs. melee or that aliens don't need to build making them stronger in small games was actually what I ment to address with this. Anyway, thanks for the infos.
regarding bone shield: we tried once damage mitigation depending on attack direction (less accurate as what is described in the thread you linked, but quite the same result). the conclusion was that it made the onos overall too strong and it didnt introduce any skill for the onos, other than "always face the marines". the new approach in my mod tries to add skill in form of energy management for the onos, rather than introducing hit zones (which would be a new concept in ns2, no class in the game has damage zones). the numbers currently used for that ability are far from ideal, its quite difficult to test it playing against myself, and i rather have the very first version be underpowered than overpowered. a very much appreciate discussions about this ability
That is sad to hear. I believed it would make the onos gameplay more interesting. But if it was tested and didn't work I agree with abandoning the idea.
@Xarius: Silence LvL3 is like vanilla, because it is actually fine and I don't want it to be more powerful. I also think the 90% camo while moving can actually work when the alien is allowed to move with full speed. It will not hide you from the marine, but it makes you harder to aim at. A buff that could make camo competitive with cele or cara again.
i have a thought about the upgrade e.g. carapace level 1, 2 and 3.
noone wants to settle for a 30% carapace, so they will simply throw down a second and third shell asap. therefore it doesn't really offer any form of tiered scaling; it only offers increased cost for a 'one time' upgrade.
i like the idea of different tiers of upgrades... perhaps it would be better if the lower tier was stronger, and the higher tier(s) require a pre-requisite such as X biomass. this might 'solidify' the theory that marines need to act quickly to kill hives 3 and/or 4 to prevent super strong carapace etc and inevitable defeat.
by that, i mean the marines are more straight-forward.... if they have two bases; they have access to all tech - and due to the resilience of jetpack/upgrades they are tough to budge. alien doesn't really have that clarity aside from the possibility of tres egg drops - which isn't very intuitive to new players.
I think the biomass idea can be extended to upgrades. I have been thinking about this for a while for hives: adding biomass could considerably increase the health of a hive (from a lower starting point) - you could well imagine model changes associated with adding biomass to hives, from a thinner, weedy looking hive, bulging out to a chunky, healthier model - though obviously that is beyond the scope of a mod like this.
Regarding upgrades, I would imagine one structure (shell, spur, veil) to which you add biomass to get the upgrades from level 1 to level 3. This allows you to control the rate of increase of the upgrade level by controlling rate of research of upgrade biomass (and also cost of this does not need to be the same per level any more). Adding biomass should also increase the health and armour of the upgrade building such that sniping a level 3 upgrade takes significantly longer than a level 1 (ie no biomass added) upgrade chamber. Whether you would need to allow biomass upgrades to be kept after they've been researched would need to be played out. If, for example, it turns out that having only 1 chamber means you really NEED to keep upgrades that have been researched (ie because sniping upgrades becomes too OP), then 'adding biomass' isn't necessarily the best way to do this, it could just be a simple 'research level 2/3' - but this is just semantics and terminology, the process is the same.
From the perspective of adding additional upgrade chambers for redundancy in case one gets sniped, I guess the 'research upgrade tech' is a better way forward, as this would be a global upgrade rather than specific to that upgrade chamber. Equivalently, you could 'add biomass' and this does it to all upgrade chambers of that type.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
that sounds very complex. I really like how simple the upgrades work now: the more you have, the stronger the upgrade is. if the problem is that upgrades are obtained too easy, a t.res increase will solve the problem. it also makes it immediately obvious to marines at which level the alien upgrades are, just by counting the amount of structures
i have a thought about the upgrade e.g. carapace level 1, 2 and 3.
noone wants to settle for a 30% carapace, so they will simply throw down a second and third shell asap. therefore it doesn't really offer any form of tiered scaling; it only offers increased cost for a 'one time' upgrade.
i like the idea of different tiers of upgrades... perhaps it would be better if the lower tier was stronger, and the higher tier(s) require a pre-requisite such as X biomass. this might 'solidify' the theory that marines need to act quickly to kill hives 3 and/or 4 to prevent super strong carapace etc and inevitable defeat.
by that, i mean the marines are more straight-forward.... if they have two bases; they have access to all tech - and due to the resilience of jetpack/upgrades they are tough to budge. alien doesn't really have that clarity aside from the possibility of tres egg drops - which isn't very intuitive to new players.
I'd rather see biomass just scale armor slighty on all lifeforms like it does with HP, then redo carapace to something other than a straight armor upgrade. The key is to find something that can compete with regen equally. Something like carapace being basically an upgrade that would actually mitigate level 3 shotgun damage down to something reasonable if you evolve it (a max damage per hit cap). The problem is not making it so ridiculous that TTK jumps up substaintially and it just becomes as rampant and required as the current carapace.
tl;dr Crag hive first always is boring. Even if you don't grab crag first you have to grab it second due to carapace.
that sounds very complex. I really like how simple the upgrades work now: the more you have, the stronger the upgrade is. if the problem is that upgrades are obtained too easy, a t.res increase will solve the problem. it also makes it immediately obvious to marines at which level the alien upgrades are, just by counting the amount of structures
Any way you can dynamically adjust the structure cost? As in if one shell is already in existence the second shell costs extra etc?
I think Biomass is in a good spot where it currently is (in the Hive). It should only have a global effect on the researchable upgrades rather than dedicating Biomass to vulnerable upgrade structures.
So keep the suggestion with upgrading structures instead of dropping multiple ones but link the available upgrade to the global Biomass level.
Then adjust the upgrade to make up for this slow scale, i.e. the first level of the trait should be weak, the second level (available on 3-4 Biomass, depending on whether you want to make a 2-Hive a requirement or open it up to a late 1-Hive play) should be on par with what we have in vanilla right now and the third level (on 6-7 Biomass) should be better than what the traits currently do, so they help to turn the tide in the lategame.
For the upgrades this scaling could mean:
-Celerity
-1- Faster acceleration, like vanilla.
-2- + Increased maximum speed cap, like the current mod.
-3- + More momentum is retained during sudden direction changes OR more air control added.
-Adrenaline
-1- 30% bigger energy pool.
-2- + 30% faster energy regeneration.
-3- Increase energy pool to 50% bigger.
-Phantom
-1- Silence only shortens the range of the noise, rather than muffling it completely. Camouflage only works for not moving at all.
-2- Silence mutes all noises. Camouflage now also cloaks with the current watery shimmer while moving slowly.
-3- + Camouflage effect stays even during fast movement, until attacking or being hit or scanned.
-Carapace
-1- 50% armor of current carapace effect added.
-2- Current carapace armor level.
-3- 150% armor of current carapace level.
-Regeneration
-1- Regeneration kicks in similar to vanilla, but with a slower heal.
-2- Regeneration heals as fast as in vanilla. Can also kick in mid-combat but heals at a slower rate then.
-3- + Starts regenerating armor at the same time as health, rather than waiting for health to fill up first.
that sounds very complex. I really like how simple the upgrades work now: the more you have, the stronger the upgrade is. if the problem is that upgrades are obtained too easy, a t.res increase will solve the problem. it also makes it immediately obvious to marines at which level the alien upgrades are, just by counting the amount of structures
it's simple but i've never seen anyone stick with 1-2 upgrades, they always go for 3.
the 'total' effect of carapace etc is a worthwhile upgrade... but i can't imagine a commander ever thinking "hmm our skulks need 7 extra armor, i'll drop another shell". in the current state it really seems like all or nothing.
why does it stop at 3 shells? why not 5 shells or 7 shells? that would require some resource management, but imagine if the commander was able to skip celerity in order to boost carapace even further... or vice versa. maybe if you get 2 x crag hives, then you can get double carapace??
assuming all upgrades are meant to be interchangable, then i don't see why there should be any problem with sacrificing celerity for an even more powerful carapace.
i'd like to try a system where you can't get max carapace (or whatever upgrade) within the first few minutes of a game. i thought the idea behind 3 shells was to give alien lifeforms a 'scaled' upgrade system in the first place
edit: all of this shell talk reminds me of demolition man
why does it stop at 3 shells? why not 5 shells or 7 shells? that would require some resource management, but imagine if the commander was able to skip celerity in order to boost carapace even further... or vice versa. maybe if you get 2 x crag hives, then you can get double carapace??
This sounds pretty amazing to be honest. Cool idea! (Though it may not be easy to balance)
So keep the suggestion with upgrading structures instead of dropping multiple ones but link the available upgrade to the global Biomass level.
Just as an aside, while it's fine to do this as a mod, this has been specifically excluded from the main game in Charlie's high-level design document.
No “magic” numbers
This goes along with gameplay clarity: there shouldn’t be any hidden numbers like “alien armor absorbs more damage with more hives”. These usually just make the game more confusing.
Again, I just mention this from a game perspective - not a mod perspective. (since people are free to do whatever they want in a mod)
So keep the suggestion with upgrading structures instead of dropping multiple ones but link the available upgrade to the global Biomass level.
Just as an aside, while it's fine to do this as a mod, this has been specifically excluded from the main game in Charlie's high-level design document.
No “magic” numbers
This goes along with gameplay clarity: there shouldn’t be any hidden numbers like “alien armor absorbs more damage with more hives”. These usually just make the game more confusing.
Again, I just mention this from a game perspective - not a mod perspective. (since people are free to do whatever they want in a mod)
Where is this any more hidden than an alien using Carapace or not?
To aliens it's quite visible because they have that bar in the top left of the HUD that shows them exactly how much Biomass they have. So they can extrapolate their relative survivability from that. The marine commander would probably be able to see the Biomass in a Hive by clicking on it when his marines have LoS or he uses scans.
Linking the structure upgrade to a specific number of Biomass wouldn't be any different from the regular evolutions we have in a Hive right now. Just display in the tooltip that you need X Biomass for the next level.
savant, have you considered that you may be reading a little too much into what charlie says?
charlie says this, charlie says that.... well if what you said is true then wtf is with marine upgrades. how do aliens know the magic number of marine armor without attacking them to find out how many bites to kill?
Half of what is in the design document no longer applies to the game today to be honest (look at 'upgrades having downsides')
That being said, 'hidden' or 'magic' values or rules are never a good idea to be honest. The game is complex enough as it is.
savant, have you considered that you may be reading a little too much into what charlie says?
He's only the chief NS2 designer and head of UWE. Clearly I'm giving what he says far too much weight.
Like I said, what Charlie says means nothing with respect to anyone's MOD. Should someone want to see something become part of the base game, you would be wise to look back on what Charlie has said for cues on whether such a change has the potential to ever be considered for inclusion.
It's why, despite people begging for it, you'll never see a return of the HMG.
Anyway, like I said, I only brought this up to reference the game design, not the mod design. Modders are free to do whatever they like, and I fully support their efforts to bring variety to the game. If it wasn't for modders NS1 wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as it did imho.
savant, have you considered that you may be reading a little too much into what charlie says?
He's only the chief NS2 designer and head of UWE. Clearly I'm giving what he says far too much weight.
Like I said, what Charlie says means nothing with respect to anyone's MOD. Should someone want to see something become part of the base game, you would be wise to look back on what Charlie has said for cues on whether such a change has the potential to ever be considered for inclusion.
It's why, despite people begging for it, you'll never see a return of the HMG.
Anyway, like I said, I only brought this up to reference the game design, not the mod design. Modders are free to do whatever they like, and I fully support their efforts to bring variety to the game. If it wasn't for modders NS1 wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as it did imho.
i was merely making an impromptu observational comment...
you pedantically quoted some ancient tablet carved by charlie, which is clearly a 'guideline' rather than statute. there are several exceptions to the rule in the live build, for example marine upgrades.
we're brainstorming some ideas in here, it's okay to disagree with them without suggestively saying "CHARLIE SAID NO - SHUT UP AND MAKE A MOD!".
Charlie himself has violated that design document many times, its a general idealogic goal. Does anyone remember lerk/onos hide armors, or fades being invul in blink? Its completely pointless to highlight that as a reason why certain changes would never be included, as its completely false.
I dont think you should focus on discussing if these changes have potential to be included in the base game - all these ideas are being evaluated and have the potential to be implemented, provided the changes prove to offer the desired improvements.
all these ideas are being evaluated and have the potential to be implemented, provided the changes prove to offer the desired improvements.
I think you're misunderstanding me. I fully agree, *ANY* change that is proposed - by mod or just by suggestion - is "evaluated" for the potential to be rolled into the game. I've made suggestions that - back in NS1 - actually got rolled into the game. I almost had one feature suggestion I made way back in NS1 become part of NS2. Anyone can suggest anything and it may make it into the game.
What should be recognized though is that the bar is set *extremely* high. Even Voogru (back in NS1), who was an active developer like Sewlek is now, had to push his mod on his own. It was only after it became popular on servers when it was seriously considered. That's when things like health at the armory were implemented. (there were some other changes he made as well, but that is the biggie I remember) If people really want to see this mod become part of the game, then you need to have people playing this all the time on full servers. If you can't continually fill a server, then why would the devs roll something unpopular into the game?
If you really like these changes, focus on server admins and the public. They are the ones you need to sell these changes to. If you really want to see things adopted then this mod needs to become popular on servers. When that happens, the guys at the top will sit up and take notice.
While I would agree with that, unfortunately the environment for mods in NS2 is quite different from NS1. Judging a mod solely based on the number of active servers is generally a difficult task, simply because of the negative connotation most people view yellow servers with.
Comments
@Sewlek: Some ideas for things I would like to see tried:
Silence LvL1: Jumping makes no sound. (Good for (wall)jumping skulks and lerks) Also bellyslide and shadow step are quiet.
Silence LvL2: Attacks make no sound.
Silence LvL3: Normal movement makes no sound. (Don't forget the screen-rumbling from the onos, or this upgrade isn't viable for it.)
Camo LvL1: Get 100% invisible when not moving.
Camo LvL2: Get 90% invisible when moving (also with full-speed!).
Camo LvL3: Stay 90% invisible even when hit / attacking.
Egg-respawn-time in seconds (per hive) = 16 - players on the alien team (This would be 1 egg every 8 seconds on a 16-player server.
Marine-respawn-time in seconds (per IP) = 2 + players on the marine team (This would be 10 seconds respawn time on an 16 player server)
With the right numbers, this will balance the game for low and high player-counts from 12 to 24 player servers.
alien spawn already scales with player count (and marines have the option to build more IPs)
"energy for health" thats just a simplified description for bone shield
regarding shade ink: you already need to plan ahead. if you dont evolve a shade hive, you wont have shades (and no ink), same as in default ns2. i figured maturity takes away a lot of dynamic, and i dont want any abilities to depend on it anymore, we have build time for that.
regarding camou and silence: that sounds quite complex to me and would be too much work. it wont be very intuitive that depending on the silence level, certain sounds are muted. the reason why i merged silence and camou was not because the upgrades individually were too weak, it was because they serve the same purpose (stealth). i think the way they are currently scaling, in one upgrade, works quite ok. problem is just that silence is not reducing volume of sounds, which i cant do currently due to engine limitations, but thats subject to change in case i stick with the approach of scalable upgrades.
-Why would jumping be muted on lvl 1 and walking only on lvl 3? It would make more sense for starters if the thing that makes more sound by nature (landing on the ground after a big jump) is harder to mute than something basic like walking.
-Researching the next level of structures is a good idea, since it adds some timed delay for getting the next level of an upgrade. Right now it's really just placing the three things down as fast as possible so that the lower levels basically don't exist at all.
However, that would mean that you have a big investment (45 res currently) in a single vulnerable upgrade structure. Though currently we have 30 res for losing Carapace, for instance, so it's not that far off. Maybe the structure could also gain some HP and armor with each upgrade.
-Not sure about the current implementation of Boneshield. Couldn't really try it out, but another played who did said that it was pretty useless. Not worth the loss of energy AND movement for the protection of HP. And you can't really use it for retreating/escaping either due to the slowdown. At best you can probably hope to sit it out until you get reinforcements.
-Hallucination on the Drifter is fine as it is. I really prefer it over the Shade ability, since it serves more to disguise which of the existing players are the real ones in a team fight. Though we no longer have fake structures. I didn't see the Hallucinations on the Shade in the old beta, but it sounds like something you can pretty easily recognize as trick after a few times.
On a side note did I not see any active ability getting added to the Drifter for Crag Hives. Rupture seems to be linked to the Shift Hive too.
I agree that maturation isn't really needed as mechanic.
But why would a LvL System for Silence and Camo be to difficult? The code should be already there. You just need to split it up for the different levels of the upgrade buildings. Maybe even easier than trying to get different volume levels with silence.
Agreed. LvL1 and LvL3 could be switched.
A health buff on upgrade sounds logical, yes. Also upgrades should be permanet and instantly when redropping a destroyed upgrade building like @Industry mentioned. It isn't this unintuitive, because abilities like Leap don't need to be re-researched too when redropping a hive. Overall I think upgrade-sniping adds to the tactical part of the game and shouldn't be to difficult but also not to punishing.
That was my thought. Energy for health may be theoretically the same, but I don't think it is as fun as a real Bone Shield. The marines can't really counter energy for health actively nor do they really see a difference. I think such a mechanic should have impact on how you battle the onos not just a simple temporary plus of health.
This was not the case. You just heard skulks biting or moving randomly when near a shade. This could really scare the crap out of you. Looking around reveals fast, that it was only fake. But if your skulks are about to engage the marine, activating this ability could conceal the incoming real skulks. The problem in beta was, that this ability was perma-on. That defeated the purpose of the shade to hide stuff.
regarding bone shield: we tried once damage mitigation depending on attack direction (less accurate as what is described in the thread you linked, but quite the same result). the conclusion was that it made the onos overall too strong and it didnt introduce any skill for the onos, other than "always face the marines". the new approach in my mod tries to add skill in form of energy management for the onos, rather than introducing hit zones (which would be a new concept in ns2, no class in the game has damage zones). the numbers currently used for that ability are far from ideal, its quite difficult to test it playing against myself, and i rather have the very first version be underpowered than overpowered. a very much appreciate discussions about this ability
I don't see how this would in any way make these upgrades competitive. Silence lvl 3 is just NS2 vanilla silence and Camo level 3 sounds like it would still be poor as it's really not that hard to pick up even 90% invisibility. As it stands, phantom is downright awesome and actually a worthy competitor of carapace and celerity. All shade needs now is a second upgrade.
I love the idea behind bone shield, can't comment much on it yet though.
It isn't clear from the description in the change log that there is linear interpolation involved, so he assumed it to have the egg spawn rate for 12vs12 only kick in once you actually have 12 players on your team.
That is sad to hear. I believed it would make the onos gameplay more interesting. But if it was tested and didn't work I agree with abandoning the idea.
@Xarius: Silence LvL3 is like vanilla, because it is actually fine and I don't want it to be more powerful. I also think the 90% camo while moving can actually work when the alien is allowed to move with full speed. It will not hide you from the marine, but it makes you harder to aim at. A buff that could make camo competitive with cele or cara again.
noone wants to settle for a 30% carapace, so they will simply throw down a second and third shell asap. therefore it doesn't really offer any form of tiered scaling; it only offers increased cost for a 'one time' upgrade.
i like the idea of different tiers of upgrades... perhaps it would be better if the lower tier was stronger, and the higher tier(s) require a pre-requisite such as X biomass. this might 'solidify' the theory that marines need to act quickly to kill hives 3 and/or 4 to prevent super strong carapace etc and inevitable defeat.
by that, i mean the marines are more straight-forward.... if they have two bases; they have access to all tech - and due to the resilience of jetpack/upgrades they are tough to budge. alien doesn't really have that clarity aside from the possibility of tres egg drops - which isn't very intuitive to new players.
Regarding upgrades, I would imagine one structure (shell, spur, veil) to which you add biomass to get the upgrades from level 1 to level 3. This allows you to control the rate of increase of the upgrade level by controlling rate of research of upgrade biomass (and also cost of this does not need to be the same per level any more). Adding biomass should also increase the health and armour of the upgrade building such that sniping a level 3 upgrade takes significantly longer than a level 1 (ie no biomass added) upgrade chamber. Whether you would need to allow biomass upgrades to be kept after they've been researched would need to be played out. If, for example, it turns out that having only 1 chamber means you really NEED to keep upgrades that have been researched (ie because sniping upgrades becomes too OP), then 'adding biomass' isn't necessarily the best way to do this, it could just be a simple 'research level 2/3' - but this is just semantics and terminology, the process is the same.
From the perspective of adding additional upgrade chambers for redundancy in case one gets sniped, I guess the 'research upgrade tech' is a better way forward, as this would be a global upgrade rather than specific to that upgrade chamber. Equivalently, you could 'add biomass' and this does it to all upgrade chambers of that type.
How does this idea sit with you guys?
I'd rather see biomass just scale armor slighty on all lifeforms like it does with HP, then redo carapace to something other than a straight armor upgrade. The key is to find something that can compete with regen equally. Something like carapace being basically an upgrade that would actually mitigate level 3 shotgun damage down to something reasonable if you evolve it (a max damage per hit cap). The problem is not making it so ridiculous that TTK jumps up substaintially and it just becomes as rampant and required as the current carapace.
tl;dr Crag hive first always is boring. Even if you don't grab crag first you have to grab it second due to carapace.
Any way you can dynamically adjust the structure cost? As in if one shell is already in existence the second shell costs extra etc?
I think Biomass is in a good spot where it currently is (in the Hive). It should only have a global effect on the researchable upgrades rather than dedicating Biomass to vulnerable upgrade structures.
So keep the suggestion with upgrading structures instead of dropping multiple ones but link the available upgrade to the global Biomass level.
Then adjust the upgrade to make up for this slow scale, i.e. the first level of the trait should be weak, the second level (available on 3-4 Biomass, depending on whether you want to make a 2-Hive a requirement or open it up to a late 1-Hive play) should be on par with what we have in vanilla right now and the third level (on 6-7 Biomass) should be better than what the traits currently do, so they help to turn the tide in the lategame.
For the upgrades this scaling could mean:
-Celerity
-1- Faster acceleration, like vanilla.
-2- + Increased maximum speed cap, like the current mod.
-3- + More momentum is retained during sudden direction changes OR more air control added.
-Adrenaline
-1- 30% bigger energy pool.
-2- + 30% faster energy regeneration.
-3- Increase energy pool to 50% bigger.
-Phantom
-1- Silence only shortens the range of the noise, rather than muffling it completely. Camouflage only works for not moving at all.
-2- Silence mutes all noises. Camouflage now also cloaks with the current watery shimmer while moving slowly.
-3- + Camouflage effect stays even during fast movement, until attacking or being hit or scanned.
-Carapace
-1- 50% armor of current carapace effect added.
-2- Current carapace armor level.
-3- 150% armor of current carapace level.
-Regeneration
-1- Regeneration kicks in similar to vanilla, but with a slower heal.
-2- Regeneration heals as fast as in vanilla. Can also kick in mid-combat but heals at a slower rate then.
-3- + Starts regenerating armor at the same time as health, rather than waiting for health to fill up first.
it's simple but i've never seen anyone stick with 1-2 upgrades, they always go for 3.
the 'total' effect of carapace etc is a worthwhile upgrade... but i can't imagine a commander ever thinking "hmm our skulks need 7 extra armor, i'll drop another shell". in the current state it really seems like all or nothing.
why does it stop at 3 shells? why not 5 shells or 7 shells? that would require some resource management, but imagine if the commander was able to skip celerity in order to boost carapace even further... or vice versa. maybe if you get 2 x crag hives, then you can get double carapace??
assuming all upgrades are meant to be interchangable, then i don't see why there should be any problem with sacrificing celerity for an even more powerful carapace.
i'd like to try a system where you can't get max carapace (or whatever upgrade) within the first few minutes of a game. i thought the idea behind 3 shells was to give alien lifeforms a 'scaled' upgrade system in the first place
edit: all of this shell talk reminds me of demolition man
Again, I just mention this from a game perspective - not a mod perspective. (since people are free to do whatever they want in a mod)
Where is this any more hidden than an alien using Carapace or not?
To aliens it's quite visible because they have that bar in the top left of the HUD that shows them exactly how much Biomass they have. So they can extrapolate their relative survivability from that. The marine commander would probably be able to see the Biomass in a Hive by clicking on it when his marines have LoS or he uses scans.
Linking the structure upgrade to a specific number of Biomass wouldn't be any different from the regular evolutions we have in a Hive right now. Just display in the tooltip that you need X Biomass for the next level.
charlie says this, charlie says that.... well if what you said is true then wtf is with marine upgrades. how do aliens know the magic number of marine armor without attacking them to find out how many bites to kill?
That being said, 'hidden' or 'magic' values or rules are never a good idea to be honest. The game is complex enough as it is.
Like I said, what Charlie says means nothing with respect to anyone's MOD. Should someone want to see something become part of the base game, you would be wise to look back on what Charlie has said for cues on whether such a change has the potential to ever be considered for inclusion.
It's why, despite people begging for it, you'll never see a return of the HMG.
Anyway, like I said, I only brought this up to reference the game design, not the mod design. Modders are free to do whatever they like, and I fully support their efforts to bring variety to the game. If it wasn't for modders NS1 wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as it did imho.
i was merely making an impromptu observational comment...
you pedantically quoted some ancient tablet carved by charlie, which is clearly a 'guideline' rather than statute. there are several exceptions to the rule in the live build, for example marine upgrades.
we're brainstorming some ideas in here, it's okay to disagree with them without suggestively saying "CHARLIE SAID NO - SHUT UP AND MAKE A MOD!".
I dont think you should focus on discussing if these changes have potential to be included in the base game - all these ideas are being evaluated and have the potential to be implemented, provided the changes prove to offer the desired improvements.
What should be recognized though is that the bar is set *extremely* high. Even Voogru (back in NS1), who was an active developer like Sewlek is now, had to push his mod on his own. It was only after it became popular on servers when it was seriously considered. That's when things like health at the armory were implemented. (there were some other changes he made as well, but that is the biggie I remember) If people really want to see this mod become part of the game, then you need to have people playing this all the time on full servers. If you can't continually fill a server, then why would the devs roll something unpopular into the game?
If you really like these changes, focus on server admins and the public. They are the ones you need to sell these changes to. If you really want to see things adopted then this mod needs to become popular on servers. When that happens, the guys at the top will sit up and take notice.