AiorosJoin Date: 2003-03-24Member: 14850Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
please go with version a) currently active. upgrading bio mass is relatively cheap, but you need in addition to research each ability individually
more choices is always good.
Marins rush for Arcs, aliens got the ability to go for bilebomb.
Scouting and the mindgames for tactics will grow.
The creativity of the community knows no boundaries.
Fast Leap, Fast Umbra. Its a dream for a commander to have a stronger tactical impact of the game.
That is one of the reasons, i like the balancemod so much at the moment.
But the cheaper biomass with the com forcing to think of which upgrade to get next is for sure the best route, it adds to the progression of the game and forces the com to communicate with the team on what they think they need to get next, or based on what's on the field. Sometimes a leap rush would benefit early game combat, you never know new strategies can be pulled from more choices to go through. Also a more expensive biomass means it's much more of a risk to blow so much res; sometimes you can ^ biomass but choose no abilities at the moment. So the current version is my choice for sure
I prefer option A. Encourages more communication between the comm and the team.
With B you'd only need to jump in the hive every minute or two to keep the biomass going. It really only serves to water down the alien commander's role.
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited May 2013
added additional 6 second respawn time when rejoining a team, suiciding or when killed by a death trigger
Shouldn't be any penalty for dying due to a death trigger. If you're in a situation where you're capable of realizing that it would be beneficial to die by a trigger I don't see why you should be punished for it. It isn't comparable to typing kill.
all marines structures can now be build on infestation, dropping them is still not allowed
What a shame. It's needlessly limiting and tedious. Also attempting to drop structures on patchy client side minimal infestation is a recipe for frustration.
I personally prefer B for the reasons mentioned by sewlek and others earlier in this thread. It does however seem like A would be the safest choice if you want to avoid player lash back .
Currently there is a problem with A though that can cause some confusion. You need tunnels before you can research bile bomb for example. This is a good middle ground between option B and a theoretical option C where abilities only require a certain biomass and you can otherwise pick them in whichever order you like. The problem is that this is poorly conveyed by the GUI.
People look at the biomass meter and wonder why bile bomb isn't available yet, and in the commander GUI the bile bomb button is nowhere to be found. Some more thought should probably be put into this, but to start with it would probably be better if all abilities were always visible in the commander GUI. Bile bomb would have the help text "Requires Biomass 3 and Gorge Tunnels". Another more radical alternative would be to replace the abilities with "Gorge lvl 2", "Gorge lvl 3" etc.
Is it at all possible to implement a system where by the Alien & Marine Commander are actively trying to out do each other?
On the ground level you have your foot soldiers laying the ground work for pushes, counter-attacks and creating defensive positions to gain/lose ground. Where as in the 'air' you have something to keep the Commanders busy.
I understand that there currently isn't much for Commanders to do since unit control is taken out of their hands (one of the most time consuming part of a RTS game). I don't agree with giving more things for the Commander to 'do' by simply figuring out what to research next -> It will always come down to a min/max build.
NS2 is in a unique position where the Commander has all this 'free' time. I believe it is a huge waste to spend it by creating artificial 'time sinks' like deciding whether or not to research leap or bile bomb first then shadow step or umbra next etc.
I don't know what that 'thing' could be where both Commanders are actively fighting each other for control over something (a room?) that is then assisted by team mates on the ground.
Off the top of my head, create an overlay that sits ontop of the in-game world where what happens in the overlay effects what happens on the ground. The Commanders 'battle' eachother over a room to gain access over lighting (visibility), temperature (speed), gravity (Jet packers/Lerks), doors (lock a room down to buy time) etc.
If I'm not mistaken there's a Nano grid or some such in the NS universe? Well why not make use of that? The Commanders still need to research upgrades, drop structures/items etc but then they can switch their view to the Nano-grid level and do stuff that will either assist their team mates or hinder the opposition.
To me, that sounds more interesting than plopping buildings/items down and deciding what to research first, second, third etc. More involvement from the Commanders and it could possibley add more depth to the game instead of being able to hop out while stuff is researching then hop back in to plop a few more buildings down.
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
i think this feature of the balance mod didn't get enough attention yet. its quite a big change for the alien tech tree and most people seem to accept it (which is a good thing) but im still unsure which variation I should use in the end. So far 2 options have been tested:
a) currently active. upgrading bio mass is relatively cheap, but you need in addition to research each ability individually
b) got tested some weeks ago, bio mass is more expensive but you get the abilities automatically
I would say the choice is clearly a), because in choice b) you would be effectively paying for the tech every time you upgraded your biomass, even if you are just replacing a dead hive and its lost biomass.
While you COULD make it so you paid less when dropping hives/upgrading biomass in order to replace lost hives/biomass, it would just get incredibly confusing; the cost to drop a hive would never be constant - if you dropped it when it would give you blink, it would cost 75, but if blink was already researched, dropping the hive would be 40.
all marines structures can now be build on infestation, dropping them is still not allowed
What a shame. It's needlessly limiting and tedious. Also attempting to drop structures on patchy client side minimal infestation is a recipe for frustration.
oops, forgot to update this entry. you can drop once again on infestation, the new penalty is that structures lose their armor over time (and 25% reduced construction speed)
Is it at all possible to implement a system where by the Alien & Marine Commander are actively trying to out do each other?
On the ground level you have your foot soldiers laying the ground work for pushes, counter-attacks and creating defensive positions to gain/lose ground. Where as in the 'air' you have something to keep the Commanders busy.
I understand that there currently isn't much for Commanders to do since unit control is taken out of their hands (one of the most time consuming part of a RTS game). I don't agree with giving more things for the Commander to 'do' by simply figuring out what to research next -> It will always come down to a min/max build.
NS2 is in a unique position where the Commander has all this 'free' time. I believe it is a huge waste to spend it by creating artificial 'time sinks' like deciding whether or not to research leap or bile bomb first then shadow step or umbra next etc.
I don't know what that 'thing' could be where both Commanders are actively fighting each other for control over something (a room?) that is then assisted by team mates on the ground.
Off the top of my head, create an overlay that sits ontop of the in-game world where what happens in the overlay effects what happens on the ground. The Commanders 'battle' eachother over a room to gain access over lighting (visibility), temperature (speed), gravity (Jet packers/Lerks), doors (lock a room down to buy time) etc.
If I'm not mistaken there's a Nano grid or some such in the NS universe? Well why not make use of that? The Commanders still need to research upgrades, drop structures/items etc but then they can switch their view to the Nano-grid level and do stuff that will either assist their team mates or hinder the opposition.
To me, that sounds more interesting than plopping buildings/items down and deciding what to research first, second, third etc. More involvement from the Commanders and it could possibley add more depth to the game instead of being able to hop out while stuff is researching then hop back in to plop a few more buildings down.
Just some random thoughts.
interesting thoughts here, but im afraid that this could lead to that commanders play their own / different game than the players on the ground (well, they already do that somewhat). i think the current approach, support through medpacks, bonewall and so on is a better one. influence the players through buffs, blocking paths, connects the commander more to the ground players and has also a visual representation in the world / is part of the FPS game.
I still think how fast Marines can get their tech compared to the Alien team is a bit unfair. Since they get their AA weapons for free, and the ability to rush higher tech for them is legit and quite fast, it leaves the Aliens in a stupid position. If they are not in the lead or tied, they get ruined. Sewlek is in the game with me now so he can see the stupidity of 400 res railguns that can be rushed with free Flamethrowers.
I should clarify. The issue I have at this point is Fades and Onos are still 50/75 res. Fades still require three hits to kill a Marine and die just as easy as an Exo assuming no research. I know once they have Shadowstep they are gods, but they take research. Railguns get to still oneshot Slulks no matter the occasion. This is not to say I disagree with the state the Marines are in, I just wish it was more comparable on the Alien side if they have the lead, or increasing how long it takes to get Proto.
I've been thinking for awhile that fade has kinda a big problem when it comes to balance. In the hands of average players & newbs, he just kinda sucks compared to saving up for Onos. But in the hands of good players he destroys.
To buff him up for the average players would be to make him an unstoppable killing machine in the hands of pros. And a cheaper Fade without a nerf would be bad too for similar reasons.
Conversely, to make him more usable for the average player, his learning curve needs to be lowered, but in doing so his skill ceiling would likely suffer too.
This is sort of what the BT mod Fade is, lowered learning curve, but is his skill ceiling the same or lowered is kinda questionable.
I was thinking, why not make 2 versions of fade you could pick from. Call them "Lesser Fade" and "Greater Fade." On the evolve menu the greater fade picture is above the lesser fade. And they would have a different look in game (make the greater fade look like the NS1 Fade pls )
The Lesser Fade:
1. Cost is 40
2. HP = 250; Base Armor = 50; Carapace Armor = 100; Damage = 55; attack speed = a little faster
3. Upgrades: has a slower version of Blink 1st, and the BT shadow step as his 2nd, and Vortex? as his 3rd upgrade
The idea here is he is a little slower, his damage is lessened, and attack rate increased so he has to sit still longer to kill marines.
The Greater Fade:
1. Cost is 55 or 60
2. HP = 325; Armor = 75; Carapace Armor = 125; Damage = 90; attack speed = same or a little slower
3. Upgrades: Has the vanilla Shadow Step 1st, A faster version of Blink 2nd, and Acid Rocket as his 3rd upgrade
The idea here is he's more effective than the lesser fade to warrant getting him, but more expensive so he's not abusable, and would fair better vs w3 a3 marines.
[For reference, stock vanilla fade is Cost = 50, HP = 250; Base Armor = 50; Carapace Armor = 100; Damage = 65]
Those numbers are just my idea, obviously they could be whatever is balanced. In my opinion, this gives aliens something cheaper to buy after lerk that's more effective than a skulk due to it's better movement, that is more newb friendly, and not as big of a res hit as a full blown fade. And marines should have an easier time taking out the lesser fade since it moves a bit slower than current fade.
At this risk of me rambling too much I'll stop talking here and see if anyone else thinks this is a good idea
And of course this could be considered for every lifeform, and could give aliens a reason to spend their res between 10, 30, 50, and 75 res, and reduce lifeforms explosion issues
I think option B is the way to go, with the caveat being that re-purchasing abilities when a hive dies is too expensive. Biomass should come back for free when a hive is rebuilt, or be much cheaper the second time.
I would go with option A to start with. Further down the line if it becomes apparent that the ability researches truly are a hollow choice, then I think you can always implement option B with little consequence. But we should wait until the changes have been tested to the extent that you can be completely convinced that researching individual abilities truly is an 'illusion'. (i.e. wait and see how the current option A plays out in the wild for a few months)
The balance of the game in the current build is great. The game's movement overhaul is unwarranted and makes the game slow and most importantly not very fun. The only problem right now is the marines ability to deal with fades. Its not even that big of a problem, but it is directly linked to nerfing nano shield duration from a whopping 8 seconds to a meager 3 seconds.
Some bugs I noticed while playing today:
- I used cysts near the wall in Mezzanine to spread infestation into the northeast corner of Elevator Transfer. Then I shifted a Crag in there. Not sure if the Crag got somehow stuck in a wall, but it was completely invincible to any enemy attack despite being clearly visible for them. Still, the increased cyst range needs to be accounted for by the maps to prevent this kind of exploit, I think. I actually shifted Bombard Whips in there too to attack the marine base in Elevator, which seems somewhat like an exploit.
- Shifting a pre-evolved egg will render it unusable.
- When only Umbra is researched, you can't switch to it by using the mouse wheel. You need to use the number keys instead. Researching Spores as well fixes the issue.
- Bombard Whips often tend to start firing despite there being a clear level geometry obstruction between them and their target. So they needlessly attract attention or don't even try attack something that is more likely to be hit.
- The new "infestation damages structure armor" mechanic is bugged in a way that it can also damage the armor of unbuilt Power Node blueprints. This is probably not intended. I haven't see the marine side of it, but I guess they can also use it for scouting by blueprint-socketing all the Power Nodes in a map and then see which ones take damage from infestation.
I would definitely be in favor of option A over option B regarding bio mass upgrades. The comm needs to have some amount of choice regarding what they do, under option B they would simply be following a linear upgrade path, which wouldn't allow any room for creativity.
option A for sure, more choice is always a good thing especially when it comes to creativity the commanders have. Rather than fall into a predictable pattern with option B, leave some variation in
Option B is nice for "no upgrade left behind,” but if you make it to where Option A fulfills the same principal, the Option A all the way.
I guess my other question if you go with option A though, what exactly is the point in biomass anyway vs what you get in vanilla? Is it just to get a little more base armor and health? And upgrades seem like they are no longer tied to hive numbers (but hive numbers reduce cost)? Just curious.
How about a hybrid of Option A, that gives you the choices of Option A, but also making it worthwhile to get every upgrade.
The idea basically is rather than tying upgrades to biomass, why not tie biomass to upgrades?
So instead of clicking “Biomass 1” then clicking Leap / tunnels / blink / whatever, then rinse repeat for biomass 2; just click Leap/ tunnels / blink/ whatever, and you get Biomass 1; after that’s done, click your next upgrade = biomass 2 etc. and let biomass still give your guys more base Health / Armor. Would reduce clicking twice
And introduce tier levels to upgrades similar to vanilla’s 1 / 2/ 3 hive unlocks to biomass upgrades. Tier 1 upgrades cost 30 res a piece, teir 2 cost 60, teir 3 90. (Note res costs completely arbitrary). And for each hive you get; either costs drop by 10~15 res a piece to a min of 30 res, or each teir drops a level to a minimum of 1.
What if each level of biomass gave you a "biomass point" that is spent on abilities in place of res? So the comm can choose the order he gets them, but has no reason not to take the abilities eventually.
This also intuitively reminds the player to pick an upgrade when he sees that he has an unspent point.
The point of Biomass was to give more regulation over upgrade acquisition while making it possible to also get some vital upgrades without a second or third Hive, but in a way that it's not available right from the start. Biomass acts a bit as additional time buffer for balancing purposes and opens more options for finetuning the flow of the game while making 1-Hive gameplay not too frustrating.
Another point is of course the aforementioned lategame scaling for lower lifeforms as well. Likewise does it make early Fade or Onos egg drops possible but not overly powerful because they will have less HP.
And it also associates a bigger economical loss with losing longer established Hives without charging the full price for previously completed upgrade researches when rebuilding the Hives.
In the beginning there was also the idea to make it so that you can have more than 3 Biomass per Hive, but with a lot more increasing costs. Imagine you could get a 4th Biomass level in a Hive for 800 tres. Or a 5th for 1200 res.
Then you would actually have a real choice between expanding your territory to get your upgrades comparably cheaper or actually staying with your established base and paying more for new stuff as well as increasing the potential loss when that base would get taken down.
I guess that idea was dropped in the end because the need of expansion for aliens should still remain and thus we still have a 3-Hive-Max-Tech model despite Biomass.
@Zek: That would not really work anyone if we got to the case of having more than the current 9 upgrades. For instance if another Onos tier 2 upgrade like Boneshield should make a comeback. Or when Gorge Webs will be introduced at some point.
Anyway, let's talk about the latest infestation change:
The damage to armor is all nice and fine, but perhaps reduce the rate a bit. Infestation should be an advantage for aliens, but not a massive threat to a marine base as it currently is.
And please don't make infestation kill a Power Node all on it's own. I see where you were going with it (aliens automatically establish more control over conquered rooms with infestation and prevent marines from fast reacquisition), but in the end repairing the Power Node is a time investment for marines and so it should also be an appropriate conscious time investment for aliens to destroy the Power Node to prevent marines from getting set up quickly in a room again. The khammander can still place a Whip in front of it if he wants to kill it himself.
But since we are already on the topic of infestation and it's connection with Power Nodes: I would still be interested in seeing infestation permanently disable the lights in room as long as it is covering a destroyed Power Node. The darkness in this game is something that is used way too sparsely.
I know it's a competitive multiplayer game and darkness gives aliens quite a (currently very shortly limited) advantage. But things have changed in this mod compared to vanilla, making such a change perhaps actually more viable:
- Infestation recedes faster, so it would take marines less time to clear infestation away from the destroyed Power Node to get the emergency lights back on.
- We have the Power Surge ability now. Perhaps using it on a destroyed Power Node could force the emergency or even normal lighting to be activated again for the duration of the surge, giving marines 30 seconds to break the darkness and make a push into a room that might have been predestined for alien ambushes before.
- If alien structures like cysts acted as glowing light sources in the darkness, having a room become fully pitch black might not even be that much of a problem anymore, at least for stuff on the ground and acquiring important stationary targets. But I don't know if the engine supports such a kind of emissive surfaces at this point.
Just played the balance mod in a pcw against godar.
Movement is disgusting.
Skulks are slow unless you go around building momentum and bunnyhopping only maintains speed and doesn't increase it? Seems really dumb.
Skulks also can't bite an RT facing an entrance and jump backwards/strafe? That's just dumb.
The attachment distance from skulk to wall also feels HUGE now and you can jump off of walls when you're even further away!
Also marine's can't arc their jumps? It's far too easy to land 3 bites now especially without the cone damage.
I don't understand what's wrong with the movement UWE has at the moment.
Just played the balance mod in a pcw against godar.
Movement is disgusting.
Skulks are slow unless you go around building momentum and bunnyhopping only maintains speed and doesn't increase it? Seems really dumb.
Skulks also can't bite an RT facing an entrance and jump backwards/strafe? That's just dumb.
The attachment distance from skulk to wall also feels HUGE now and you can jump off of walls when you're even further away!
Also marine's can't arc their jumps? It's far too easy to land 3 bites now especially without the cone damage.
I don't understand what's wrong with the movement UWE has at the moment.
You gain speed by chaining walljumps not bhop, bhop is merely a way of retaining that speed.
Attachment distance, never noticed this one. Feels the same to me
Just played the balance mod in a pcw against godar.
Movement is disgusting.
Skulks are slow unless you go around building momentum and bunnyhopping only maintains speed and doesn't increase it? Seems really dumb.
Skulks also can't bite an RT facing an entrance and jump backwards/strafe? That's just dumb.
The attachment distance from skulk to wall also feels HUGE now and you can jump off of walls when you're even further away!
Also marine's can't arc their jumps? It's far too easy to land 3 bites now especially without the cone damage.
I don't understand what's wrong with the movement UWE has at the moment.
Actually, Skulks do get speed from bunnyhopping...
Eventually, speed is much more effectively gained by chaining together glancing wall jumps and essentially maintaining that momentum between wall touches with bunny hopping.
Honestly I think high speeds are far too easily achieved and maintained, mouse movements should be more prominent in the movement, especially in the wall jumping (wall tapping) component.
Comments
more choices is always good.
Marins rush for Arcs, aliens got the ability to go for bilebomb.
Scouting and the mindgames for tactics will grow.
The creativity of the community knows no boundaries.
Fast Leap, Fast Umbra. Its a dream for a commander to have a stronger tactical impact of the game.
That is one of the reasons, i like the balancemod so much at the moment.
But the cheaper biomass with the com forcing to think of which upgrade to get next is for sure the best route, it adds to the progression of the game and forces the com to communicate with the team on what they think they need to get next, or based on what's on the field. Sometimes a leap rush would benefit early game combat, you never know new strategies can be pulled from more choices to go through. Also a more expensive biomass means it's much more of a risk to blow so much res; sometimes you can ^ biomass but choose no abilities at the moment. So the current version is my choice for sure
With B you'd only need to jump in the hive every minute or two to keep the biomass going. It really only serves to water down the alien commander's role.
Shouldn't be any penalty for dying due to a death trigger. If you're in a situation where you're capable of realizing that it would be beneficial to die by a trigger I don't see why you should be punished for it. It isn't comparable to typing kill.
What a shame. It's needlessly limiting and tedious. Also attempting to drop structures on patchy client side minimal infestation is a recipe for frustration.
Currently there is a problem with A though that can cause some confusion. You need tunnels before you can research bile bomb for example. This is a good middle ground between option B and a theoretical option C where abilities only require a certain biomass and you can otherwise pick them in whichever order you like. The problem is that this is poorly conveyed by the GUI.
People look at the biomass meter and wonder why bile bomb isn't available yet, and in the commander GUI the bile bomb button is nowhere to be found. Some more thought should probably be put into this, but to start with it would probably be better if all abilities were always visible in the commander GUI. Bile bomb would have the help text "Requires Biomass 3 and Gorge Tunnels". Another more radical alternative would be to replace the abilities with "Gorge lvl 2", "Gorge lvl 3" etc.
On the ground level you have your foot soldiers laying the ground work for pushes, counter-attacks and creating defensive positions to gain/lose ground. Where as in the 'air' you have something to keep the Commanders busy.
I understand that there currently isn't much for Commanders to do since unit control is taken out of their hands (one of the most time consuming part of a RTS game). I don't agree with giving more things for the Commander to 'do' by simply figuring out what to research next -> It will always come down to a min/max build.
NS2 is in a unique position where the Commander has all this 'free' time. I believe it is a huge waste to spend it by creating artificial 'time sinks' like deciding whether or not to research leap or bile bomb first then shadow step or umbra next etc.
I don't know what that 'thing' could be where both Commanders are actively fighting each other for control over something (a room?) that is then assisted by team mates on the ground.
Off the top of my head, create an overlay that sits ontop of the in-game world where what happens in the overlay effects what happens on the ground. The Commanders 'battle' eachother over a room to gain access over lighting (visibility), temperature (speed), gravity (Jet packers/Lerks), doors (lock a room down to buy time) etc.
If I'm not mistaken there's a Nano grid or some such in the NS universe? Well why not make use of that? The Commanders still need to research upgrades, drop structures/items etc but then they can switch their view to the Nano-grid level and do stuff that will either assist their team mates or hinder the opposition.
To me, that sounds more interesting than plopping buildings/items down and deciding what to research first, second, third etc. More involvement from the Commanders and it could possibley add more depth to the game instead of being able to hop out while stuff is researching then hop back in to plop a few more buildings down.
Just some random thoughts.
I would say the choice is clearly a), because in choice b) you would be effectively paying for the tech every time you upgraded your biomass, even if you are just replacing a dead hive and its lost biomass.
While you COULD make it so you paid less when dropping hives/upgrading biomass in order to replace lost hives/biomass, it would just get incredibly confusing; the cost to drop a hive would never be constant - if you dropped it when it would give you blink, it would cost 75, but if blink was already researched, dropping the hive would be 40.
oops, forgot to update this entry. you can drop once again on infestation, the new penalty is that structures lose their armor over time (and 25% reduced construction speed)
interesting thoughts here, but im afraid that this could lead to that commanders play their own / different game than the players on the ground (well, they already do that somewhat). i think the current approach, support through medpacks, bonewall and so on is a better one. influence the players through buffs, blocking paths, connects the commander more to the ground players and has also a visual representation in the world / is part of the FPS game.
I've been thinking for awhile that fade has kinda a big problem when it comes to balance. In the hands of average players & newbs, he just kinda sucks compared to saving up for Onos. But in the hands of good players he destroys.
To buff him up for the average players would be to make him an unstoppable killing machine in the hands of pros. And a cheaper Fade without a nerf would be bad too for similar reasons.
Conversely, to make him more usable for the average player, his learning curve needs to be lowered, but in doing so his skill ceiling would likely suffer too.
This is sort of what the BT mod Fade is, lowered learning curve, but is his skill ceiling the same or lowered is kinda questionable.
I was thinking, why not make 2 versions of fade you could pick from. Call them "Lesser Fade" and "Greater Fade." On the evolve menu the greater fade picture is above the lesser fade. And they would have a different look in game (make the greater fade look like the NS1 Fade pls
The Lesser Fade:
1. Cost is 40
2. HP = 250; Base Armor = 50; Carapace Armor = 100; Damage = 55; attack speed = a little faster
3. Upgrades: has a slower version of Blink 1st, and the BT shadow step as his 2nd, and Vortex? as his 3rd upgrade
The idea here is he is a little slower, his damage is lessened, and attack rate increased so he has to sit still longer to kill marines.
The Greater Fade:
1. Cost is 55 or 60
2. HP = 325; Armor = 75; Carapace Armor = 125; Damage = 90; attack speed = same or a little slower
3. Upgrades: Has the vanilla Shadow Step 1st, A faster version of Blink 2nd, and Acid Rocket as his 3rd upgrade
The idea here is he's more effective than the lesser fade to warrant getting him, but more expensive so he's not abusable, and would fair better vs w3 a3 marines.
[For reference, stock vanilla fade is Cost = 50, HP = 250; Base Armor = 50; Carapace Armor = 100; Damage = 65]
Those numbers are just my idea, obviously they could be whatever is balanced. In my opinion, this gives aliens something cheaper to buy after lerk that's more effective than a skulk due to it's better movement, that is more newb friendly, and not as big of a res hit as a full blown fade. And marines should have an easier time taking out the lesser fade since it moves a bit slower than current fade.
At this risk of me rambling too much I'll stop talking here and see if anyone else thinks this is a good idea
And of course this could be considered for every lifeform, and could give aliens a reason to spend their res between 10, 30, 50, and 75 res, and reduce lifeforms explosion issues
Not as doing it . . .
I would go with option A to start with. Further down the line if it becomes apparent that the ability researches truly are a hollow choice, then I think you can always implement option B with little consequence. But we should wait until the changes have been tested to the extent that you can be completely convinced that researching individual abilities truly is an 'illusion'. (i.e. wait and see how the current option A plays out in the wild for a few months)
- I used cysts near the wall in Mezzanine to spread infestation into the northeast corner of Elevator Transfer. Then I shifted a Crag in there. Not sure if the Crag got somehow stuck in a wall, but it was completely invincible to any enemy attack despite being clearly visible for them. Still, the increased cyst range needs to be accounted for by the maps to prevent this kind of exploit, I think. I actually shifted Bombard Whips in there too to attack the marine base in Elevator, which seems somewhat like an exploit.
- Shifting a pre-evolved egg will render it unusable.
- When only Umbra is researched, you can't switch to it by using the mouse wheel. You need to use the number keys instead. Researching Spores as well fixes the issue.
- Bombard Whips often tend to start firing despite there being a clear level geometry obstruction between them and their target. So they needlessly attract attention or don't even try attack something that is more likely to be hit.
- The new "infestation damages structure armor" mechanic is bugged in a way that it can also damage the armor of unbuilt Power Node blueprints. This is probably not intended. I haven't see the marine side of it, but I guess they can also use it for scouting by blueprint-socketing all the Power Nodes in a map and then see which ones take damage from infestation.
now fix performance and netcode and we got a playable game!
I guess my other question if you go with option A though, what exactly is the point in biomass anyway vs what you get in vanilla? Is it just to get a little more base armor and health? And upgrades seem like they are no longer tied to hive numbers (but hive numbers reduce cost)? Just curious.
How about a hybrid of Option A, that gives you the choices of Option A, but also making it worthwhile to get every upgrade.
The idea basically is rather than tying upgrades to biomass, why not tie biomass to upgrades?
So instead of clicking “Biomass 1” then clicking Leap / tunnels / blink / whatever, then rinse repeat for biomass 2; just click Leap/ tunnels / blink/ whatever, and you get Biomass 1; after that’s done, click your next upgrade = biomass 2 etc. and let biomass still give your guys more base Health / Armor. Would reduce clicking twice
And introduce tier levels to upgrades similar to vanilla’s 1 / 2/ 3 hive unlocks to biomass upgrades. Tier 1 upgrades cost 30 res a piece, teir 2 cost 60, teir 3 90. (Note res costs completely arbitrary). And for each hive you get; either costs drop by 10~15 res a piece to a min of 30 res, or each teir drops a level to a minimum of 1.
This also intuitively reminds the player to pick an upgrade when he sees that he has an unspent point.
With the Biomass though, B has the massive issue of making it impossible for Aliens to handle loosing one base since they just loose too much.
The point of Biomass was to give more regulation over upgrade acquisition while making it possible to also get some vital upgrades without a second or third Hive, but in a way that it's not available right from the start. Biomass acts a bit as additional time buffer for balancing purposes and opens more options for finetuning the flow of the game while making 1-Hive gameplay not too frustrating.
Another point is of course the aforementioned lategame scaling for lower lifeforms as well. Likewise does it make early Fade or Onos egg drops possible but not overly powerful because they will have less HP.
And it also associates a bigger economical loss with losing longer established Hives without charging the full price for previously completed upgrade researches when rebuilding the Hives.
In the beginning there was also the idea to make it so that you can have more than 3 Biomass per Hive, but with a lot more increasing costs. Imagine you could get a 4th Biomass level in a Hive for 800 tres. Or a 5th for 1200 res.
Then you would actually have a real choice between expanding your territory to get your upgrades comparably cheaper or actually staying with your established base and paying more for new stuff as well as increasing the potential loss when that base would get taken down.
I guess that idea was dropped in the end because the need of expansion for aliens should still remain and thus we still have a 3-Hive-Max-Tech model despite Biomass.
@Zek: That would not really work anyone if we got to the case of having more than the current 9 upgrades. For instance if another Onos tier 2 upgrade like Boneshield should make a comeback. Or when Gorge Webs will be introduced at some point.
Anyway, let's talk about the latest infestation change:
The damage to armor is all nice and fine, but perhaps reduce the rate a bit. Infestation should be an advantage for aliens, but not a massive threat to a marine base as it currently is.
And please don't make infestation kill a Power Node all on it's own. I see where you were going with it (aliens automatically establish more control over conquered rooms with infestation and prevent marines from fast reacquisition), but in the end repairing the Power Node is a time investment for marines and so it should also be an appropriate conscious time investment for aliens to destroy the Power Node to prevent marines from getting set up quickly in a room again. The khammander can still place a Whip in front of it if he wants to kill it himself.
But since we are already on the topic of infestation and it's connection with Power Nodes: I would still be interested in seeing infestation permanently disable the lights in room as long as it is covering a destroyed Power Node. The darkness in this game is something that is used way too sparsely.
I know it's a competitive multiplayer game and darkness gives aliens quite a (currently very shortly limited) advantage. But things have changed in this mod compared to vanilla, making such a change perhaps actually more viable:
- Infestation recedes faster, so it would take marines less time to clear infestation away from the destroyed Power Node to get the emergency lights back on.
- We have the Power Surge ability now. Perhaps using it on a destroyed Power Node could force the emergency or even normal lighting to be activated again for the duration of the surge, giving marines 30 seconds to break the darkness and make a push into a room that might have been predestined for alien ambushes before.
- If alien structures like cysts acted as glowing light sources in the darkness, having a room become fully pitch black might not even be that much of a problem anymore, at least for stuff on the ground and acquiring important stationary targets. But I don't know if the engine supports such a kind of emissive surfaces at this point.
Movement is disgusting.
Skulks are slow unless you go around building momentum and bunnyhopping only maintains speed and doesn't increase it? Seems really dumb.
Skulks also can't bite an RT facing an entrance and jump backwards/strafe? That's just dumb.
The attachment distance from skulk to wall also feels HUGE now and you can jump off of walls when you're even further away!
Also marine's can't arc their jumps? It's far too easy to land 3 bites now especially without the cone damage.
I don't understand what's wrong with the movement UWE has at the moment.
You gain speed by chaining walljumps not bhop, bhop is merely a way of retaining that speed.
Attachment distance, never noticed this one. Feels the same to me
l2p issues
Eventually, speed is much more effectively gained by chaining together glancing wall jumps and essentially maintaining that momentum between wall touches with bunny hopping.
Honestly I think high speeds are far too easily achieved and maintained, mouse movements should be more prominent in the movement, especially in the wall jumping (wall tapping) component.