Okay I've had a couple of hours or so playing in this tonight.
First up, skulk movement. It is fun to play, but oh so trolololol at times! You can get some insane speed up very fast, and this makes for incredibly deadly skulks who slingshot around corners. For the main alien games I played (before you just joined, Sewlek!), I felt almost indestructible as skulk: you can really move fast and combined with carapace, this makes you nigh on impossible for most marines to hit. In my first skulk round (I stayed skulk the entire time), I ended up on 21/6, which for a muppet like me seems a bit high! It might need toning down a bit.
Secondly, welding. The only thing I can say that surprised me about the welding was how it *didn't* actually stop a rather laboured marine turtle when we played. I didn't find it annoying (but I was biased towards it beforehand), and in general everyone was very prepared to weld up. It made for a couple of interesting moments when several of us were welding as the aliens attacked. Overall - good change. Regarding the res: I found 5 res okay for this. On our turtle on 1 res node, this made it difficult to keep buying welders (as it should be when you're massively on the back foot and should be losing!), but not impossible, and with recycling, this wasn't an issue at all.
Fade: I only played this for a little bit, but it seemed okay... Blink was all right as the first ability (I had preconceived worries about this which did not prove to be valid). I never got a chance to play with shadowstep as the marines conceded before we got it
No res while dead: the main concern I hear voiced about this is lifeform explosions. I didn't observe any lifeform explosions at all in the short time I played, and subjectively speaking, I like this change.
IP spawn time: this was at times noticeable, but not horrible as marines. Am I correct in thinking that 2 IPs max are used at any one tech point, as well (like vanilla?)?
MACs follow and weld order: thank you! This has to go into the official builds.
Celerity in combat and max speed upgrade: this would explain the 21/6 round I think. Carapace and celerity on a skulk travelling at about 280mph is a brutal, brutal combination. Perhaps a bit too much?
other observations:
Sounds. I felt like I could hear marines from a lot further away than normal. I was saying to teammates things like '2 incoming to repair right now!' only to find that they were near the power in ore processing. This was quite noticeable on all maps. Is there a change to the sound or could this be a bug that's found its way in (or is it just me imagining it?!).
The movement I experienced as alien (skulk and fade only tonight I'm afraid), felt fluid, smooth, buttery. Lovely. Apart from OMGLOLZ rocketskulking, it feels like it's in a good place.
Hitreg (or at least the feeling of hitreg!): it seemed spot on. I was playing with a ping of about 100-120 and everything felt just great. I had no problem shooting skulks, lerks and fades (aside from my own terrible aim), and they sure seemed to have no problem shooting me later on in the evening!
Thanks for all your hard work, and those who are hosting these as well. I hope my feedback is useful, I realise it's not exhaustive. Please PM me if you want anything more specific, or want me to look out for something specific next time I play here
SoundFX, thats really an important question, one i was asking myself for a long time people like to press the jump button. especially in more advanced gameplay, jump means (usually) preserving momentum. it just gives a very entertaining feeling when you are able to get some additional speed, and are able to maintain that by using the environment correctly (dont crash into obstacles) to continue to preserve that speed and build it up even further. now that additional speed comes also at a cost (reduced control) which makes it even more interesting because it basically increases the maximum skill level and has basically no upper limit. why "jump" has to be the way to go, i dont know. its somewhat established by now that jumping means preserve your momentum. we could also introduce something different i suppose, but that would make it for the majority of the players unintuitive at first, and would make the introduction to a skill based movement system more difficult than necessary. fortunately, jumping is not the only way to move in ns2 (see belly slide, lerk glide, jetpacks, charge, more to come?) but its still a very basic thing and generally accepted as being part of a skill based movement system.
i love this perspective.
making the movement system interesting and fun should come before balance... finding a way to prevent marine's getting curbstomped by skulks is an afterthought.
if balance comes before fun then we'd still be flipping coins instead of video games
I wonder if double-tap based quick dodging for Skulks would make any sense. See a marine opening fire on you? Double-tab the left movement control to dash quickly to the left and thus throw the marine's tracking a bit off with sudden movement on the ground. That was if Skulks needed any additional buff at all, though you could also consider making dodging an unlock that comes with Leap.
On the other hand is dodging one of the signature moves of the Fade right now.
I'd say a definite no to this. The double tap dodge was tried on the fade and it was pretty awful. It ended up in a lot of accidental dodges when precision movement was needed. The skulk would probably be even worse as the margin for error (health pool) is lower.
making the movement system interesting and fun should come before balance... finding a way to prevent marine's getting curbstomped by skulks is an afterthought.
if balance comes before fun then we'd still be flipping coins instead of video games
I agree fun definitely needs to be taken into consideration with movement. Several builds back before walljump was nerfed (when they used to be able to get more height/distance off walljumps), I had soo much fun feeling like a parkour skulk. Yeah it was OP at the time, but damn it was fun moving around the map like that.
Sounds. I felt like I could hear marines from a lot further away than normal. I was saying to teammates things like '2 incoming to repair right now!' only to find that they were near the power in ore processing. This was quite noticeable on all maps. Is there a change to the sound or could this be a bug that's found its way in (or is it just me imagining it?!).
Now that you mention it, it seems to me like I've heard skulks from much further away ever since 240 came out. So maybe this is a 240 thing, not a Sewlek thing?
I played a few games this evening and was pretty happy with it.
I really like the res while dead feature as it allows me to be lerk more than once a match. The biomass, once i understood it, was pretty cool.
As a marine it seemed more difficult to shoot down skulks who were down a hallway. This could be because of the aforementioned speed boost or it could be because I'm a poor shot. (probably the latter).
I actually like the armory change as i felt that carrying a welder was a vital choice. It had the added effect of us traveling in at least groups of two and it seems that it gave us a little more survivability, we were actively looking around trying to figure out where the ambush would come from and were more jumpy due to our fragility.
The marine spawn timer was a little disconcerting at first but as the matches progressed it became second place.
I didn't even realize that the alien spawn time had been increased so i guess that's a good thing.
Wish focus was added back in the game though, you could just put silence/cloak as one ability...
Agreed on both accounts, and Shade Hive as the "weapons upgrade" tech path sounds interesting. I think having Silence/Camouflage together makes scaling its effectiveness much easier, too.
For example, # of Veils and effects on new Camouflage:
1 = complete silence when camouflaged
2 = reduced fade time, complete silence when moving
3 = reduced fade time, complete silence when moving + attacking
I still find the real problem to be that the alien com has no choice in the tech order. Imagine if the marines could not decide when to upgrade armor and when to upgrade weapons and the order of upgrades was always the same or they could not get AA until they are 2 2.
It is almost like the changes to drifter are meant to be an excuse for still having an alien com as for anything other than drifter control they are not really needed. Before the com would need to base upgrade decisions off of what lifeforms they are or will have soon. Got some pro fades on your team? OK get blink before leap so they can really do some damage. The complete in ability to decide any form of upgrade order is leaving the alien com high and dry.
There should be some sort of choice as to what upgrades you unlock when this would encourage more strategic play, more choices and be a lot more fun:
1 bio (always tunnels)
2 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio)
3 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink)
4 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors)
5 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno)
6 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex)
7 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
8 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
9 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
Wish focus was added back in the game though, you could just put silence/cloak as one ability...
Agreed on both accounts, and Shade Hive as the "weapons upgrade" tech path sounds interesting. I think having Silence/Camouflage together makes scaling its effectiveness much easier, too.
For example, # of Veils and effects on new Camouflage:
1 = complete silence when camouflaged
2 = reduced fade time, complete silence when moving
3 = reduced fade time, complete silence when moving + attacking
Does a Veil still cost only 5 res?
Because that would give you the maximum effect for the price of a Shell.
after death, sometimes your camera would be focused at the hive for seemingly ages with no indicator for spawn time. then out of the blue you see an egg and spawn abruptly.
two problems:
- once i was waiting at a hive for about 20-30 seconds to spawn, there was a marine attacking the hive and no eggs. but we had 2 other hives, so why couldn't i spawn at one of those? the teams were 2v2 so it wasn't an auto-balance or 'not enough eggs' thing.
- it's kinda crappy to not see where you're about to spawn, it's an unwanted delay and if there's a marine about you just get killed again before you can get your bearings :P
Marines
- love the change to welders, more teamwork in a team based game
- movement feels a little bit like ice skates, not a huge fan of that
- ARCs feel completely hard countered by ink cloud. Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm leaning towards good
Aliens
- skulk movement feels great out of combat, but really bad in combat, again, very ice skatey. It feels really difficult to stay close to a marine while in combat like you used to be able to, which is essential for quick kills (for me anyway)
- the lerk changes seem like a really good idea, and in theory seem to make the lerk scale better, but I haven't played enough with it to say for sure
- fade movement changes are AWESOME
- celerity + combat = , improved combat effectiveness is necessary for it to be able to compete with carapace
- the biomass system works very well, it just feels like not a lot of choice is really given to the khamm in terms of grabbing abilities
- scalable upgrades are a great idea, but make spurs/shells/veils feel a little... silly? Also makes it feel like upgrade sniping is not near as viable of a strategy (perhaps this was the intent?)
- shade feels MUCH more viable due to the changes to drifters / ink, but the shade upgrades still feel like the worst upgrades since neither of them increases combat effectiveness (except situationally)
Bugs
- leap animation isn't playing most of the time.
I can't get past the skulk movement. It's not precise enough imho. I keep flying past my target, sliding all over the place... it's not tight and it should be imho.
I still find the real problem to be that the alien com has no choice in the tech order. Imagine if the marines could not decide when to upgrade armor and when to upgrade weapons and the order of upgrades was always the same or they could not get AA until they are 2 2.
It is almost like the changes to drifter are meant to be an excuse for still having an alien com as for anything other than drifter control they are not really needed. Before the com would need to base upgrade decisions off of what lifeforms they are or will have soon. Got some pro fades on your team? OK get blink before leap so they can really do some damage. The complete in ability to decide any form of upgrade order is leaving the alien com high and dry.
There should be some sort of choice as to what upgrades you unlock when this would encourage more strategic play, more choices and be a lot more fun:
1 bio (always tunnels)
2 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio)
3 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink)
4 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors)
5 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno)
6 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex)
7 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
8 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
9 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
Well, the issue with allowing the comm to choose ability orders is that it tends to result in cookie cutter orders that neglect the less important abilities, as we've already seen. In theory it gives the comm more variety, but in practice it just penalizes the players who are missing Blink/Spores etc. The linear order ensures that no life form is left behind, and allows for prioritizing the abilities based on their relative value.
Well, the issue with allowing the comm to choose ability orders is that it tends to result in cookie cutter orders that neglect the less important abilities, as we've already seen. In theory it gives the comm more variety, but in practice it just penalizes the players who are missing Blink/Spores etc. The linear order ensures that no life form is left behind, and allows for prioritizing the abilities based on their relative value.
That's exactly the wrong approach.
If commanders always neglect certain abilities when given the choice, the correct approach is to make those abilities more attractive, not make them mandatory.
Don't remove choices. Make the choices more interesting and difficult. This is a strategy game. That's what strategy is.
I can't get past the skulk movement. It's not precise enough imho. I keep flying past my target, sliding all over the place... it's not tight and it should be imho.
That's actually the intention. Skulk movement in vanilla is fast, wild and erratic and gives a major advantage. What this movement is trying out is with the more speed you have the less control you have (that being primarily your ability to turn). Essentially when you really get going you become a torpedo. I still think it is a bit slippery but I personally like it. I have to be careful with my engagements as I can't just turn tail and run safely as I could in vanilla.
Looking to jump in and do some more testing this weekend, haven't been able to play much this week!
Well, the issue with allowing the comm to choose ability orders is that it tends to result in cookie cutter orders that neglect the less important abilities, as we've already seen. In theory it gives the comm more variety, but in practice it just penalizes the players who are missing Blink/Spores etc. The linear order ensures that no life form is left behind, and allows for prioritizing the abilities based on their relative value.
That's exactly the wrong approach.
If commanders always neglect certain abilities when given the choice, the correct approach is to make those abilities more attractive, not make them mandatory.
Don't remove choices. Make the choices more interesting and difficult. This is a strategy game. That's what strategy is.
Well now you're applying a restriction to the design of these abilities that every one of them must be an equally viable first choice, and an equally viable second choice, etc. It's not going to happen. Leap applies to almost every player on your team, of course that goes first. Spores is not an underpowered ability, but nobody will ever want it before Leap because its role in the game just isn't as critical.
An example of a good tech choice is the choice of chamber type with each hive. It's reasonably plausible to make every combination of the three hive types a viable strategy. Compared to that, picking individual upgrades is not nearly as valuable a choice. Try to imagine a world in which Adrenaline gets picked before Celerity. That's never going to happen, not even if Adren gave you infinite energy, because Celerity is fundamentally a way better upgrade for skulks. So being able to choose when to research those individual upgrades doesn't really accomplish anything expect to make the game less fun for Gorges who can't choose Adrenaline until the comm eventually decides to pay for it. I think it's important to highlight choices that are meaningful, and streamline ones that aren't.
i don't know whether it's just because it's different/new, but i have so much fun on this mod.
skulk movement seems to be the most controversial change (from what ppl were saying in game), but i certainly enjoy it - seems more skill based. although it might take quite a lot of getting used to.
fade movement is great once you retrain yourself to not use shadowstep as your gap-closer (really floaty for a moment), but after learning to bunny hop and gap-close with blink it improved dramatically.
as for lerk, i found the switcheroo spores/spikes to be very interesting, especially with spores being given a little range. this seemed to make lerk a much better team player instead of a poor man's fade. although lerk movement felt a little jerky, and when you touch the floor it's like b240 skulk x100 :P
the movement changes indeed feel 'floaty' as opposed to the heavy feeling we have in b241. i guess that's not everyone's cup of tea, but i really like it. they're really fun to play, it feels like you're driving a murcielago compared to an m4 sherman.
the non-movement related changes are all a step in the right direction imo.
i think the skulk movement is a little too much. tighten it up or you will destroy the pub skulks with this change, it's hard to maneuver while in 'dogfighting speed', even when standing on the ground the acceleration is too low, and marines can easily jump away.
Not sure how I feel about the "biomass" system, but I love the old NS1 chamber drop system, while it may cost a lil more initially if you use a single chamber due to marine, it's not as expensive to build one additional one as oppose to having to build the chamber and then reupgrade, I quite like that system.
Again not the biggest fan of the biomass system though, and the reversal of lerk abilities, I really rely on the ability to kill mines early game as lerk to assist the team with marine mine spam and found that to be rather frustrating not to be able to assist in that way.
As far as skulk movement, I am loving it entirely except with a small exception of the air control, i wish I could turn slightly more while in the air, other then that I find it wonderful.
Not sure how I feel about the "biomass" system, but I love the old NS1 chamber drop system, while it may cost a lil more initially if you use a single chamber due to marine, it's not as expensive to build one additional one as oppose to having to build the chamber and then reupgrade, I quite like that system.
Again not the biggest fan of the biomass system though, and the reversal of lerk abilities, I really rely on the ability to kill mines early game as lerk to assist the team with marine mine spam and found that to be rather frustrating not to be able to assist in that way.
As far as skulk movement, I am loving it entirely except with a small exception of the air control, i wish I could turn slightly more while in the air, other then that I find it wonderful.
yeah the mine situation is tricky. gorge, babblers and infestation kill mines, of course it's not an ideal situation.
it's a tough one though because i love the modified spores. seems to form a larger cloud at range; making it much easier to take down a phase gate when you can spam spores from a safe distance.
i didn't get a chance to try the modified spikes, but apparently they have increased damage. that sounds pretty exciting though - more effective late game pecking away at jetpacker/exo's.
i didn't get a chance to try the modified spikes, but apparently they have increased damage. that sounds pretty exciting though - more effective late game pecking away at jetpacker/exo's.
I thought the change was from puncture -> heavy damage. Which means more damage against armored targets, but less against unarmored players. So it's situational I guess, I may have a closer look at the numbers tomorrow.
The Lerk changes are pretty interesting. He didn't mention it in the changelog but Umbra is now hive 2 which is a pretty huge deal. Maybe for the sake of variety and balance Umbra should be switched to be a point blank AoE ability like it was in NS 1.0? From toying with the spores, my main complaint is that I don't like the feel of projectile spores still firing in a constant stream - if it's going to be a projectile it should behave like current Umbra IMO.
I still find the real problem to be that the alien com has no choice in the tech order. Imagine if the marines could not decide when to upgrade armor and when to upgrade weapons and the order of upgrades was always the same or they could not get AA until they are 2 2.
It is almost like the changes to drifter are meant to be an excuse for still having an alien com as for anything other than drifter control they are not really needed. Before the com would need to base upgrade decisions off of what lifeforms they are or will have soon. Got some pro fades on your team? OK get blink before leap so they can really do some damage. The complete in ability to decide any form of upgrade order is leaving the alien com high and dry.
There should be some sort of choice as to what upgrades you unlock when this would encourage more strategic play, more choices and be a lot more fun:
1 bio (always tunnels)
2 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio)
3 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink)
4 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors)
5 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno)
6 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex)
7 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
8 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
9 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
Well, the issue with allowing the comm to choose ability orders is that it tends to result in cookie cutter orders that neglect the less important abilities, as we've already seen. In theory it gives the comm more variety, but in practice it just penalizes the players who are missing Blink/Spores etc. The linear order ensures that no life form is left behind, and allows for prioritizing the abilities based on their relative value.
So basically we should remove abilities of the commander b/c people do not know how to command!? Under that logic we just not even have coms b/c people do not know what to do. The idea that everyone is doing the same thing anyways suggests that either A there is a balance problem with the abilities themselves causing a particular order to be universally better in all conditions or that B the people generally commanding have no will or mind of their own and thus just do the same stupid strategy every game regardless of actual conditions.
I usually com so I have not seen much of this. I very my tech path greatly from game to game. Usually I grab leap then blink but sometimes I do not even get blink if we have no good fades to use it or if no one is going to be able to at this time and a 3rd hive is available instead. I can not even recall a game where I actually did the same exact tech path 3 games in a row for hive level upgrades. The only thing I will do is always go shift->creg->shade (b/c I am still convinced that is the best order for pubs) but other than that my build orders for everything else depend on what is going on in the game.
As for the comments that if some upgrades are being ignored perhaps they should get a buff. I once again point to the idea that generally upgrade decisions should be being made based of the reality of your teams p-res and what lifeforms they currently have/plan to use soon along with who is going to get those lifeforms. The only guy that can get fade is 5/15 and we got a bunch of positive KDR lerks I think I will be going spores before blink. Already got spores I think I will go for the hive drop and I may never get blink and go right for stomp b/c by the time these leaks die it is onos egg time! These choices are something we did not have in NS1 as the upgrades came with the hive as there was no alien com. The elimination of choice in these upgrades is the removal of maco strategic value for the alien com. I do not understand why aliens would even need a human commander if there is not choice in hive level tech order.
I know this has been stated before, but the 20 res cost on the skill upgrades and the 50 res on the final Biomass on the Hive is near alien ruining.
One of the biggest advantages the current research each skill you pick is that if a Hive dies, rebuying a Hive will return the research. Losing a Hive is 40 res lost in the client, up to 110 res lost in this mod.
The Lerk changes are pretty interesting. He didn't mention it in the changelog but Umbra is now hive 2 which is a pretty huge deal. Maybe for the sake of variety and balance Umbra should be switched to be a point blank AoE ability like it was in NS 1.0? From toying with the spores, my main complaint is that I don't like the feel of projectile spores still firing in a constant stream - if it's going to be a projectile it should behave like current Umbra IMO.
it should not be like a projectile, more like "spraying" (so the flyby and spray maneuvers work the same as before), but thats anyway just a visual thing. important for gameplay is that the spore clouds appear a bit in front of the lerk now
I know this has been stated before, but the 20 res cost on the skill upgrades and the 50 res on the final Biomass on the Hive is near alien ruining.
One of the biggest advantages the current research each skill you pick is that if a Hive dies, rebuying a Hive will return the research. Losing a Hive is 40 res lost in the client, up to 110 res lost in this mod.
Wow I can not believe that I totally forgot about this! It is true that it does not make losing a hive as alien game breaking so much so that you might as well make it so if aliens lose an upgraded hive it just ends the game right there b/c after that it is basically a waste of everyone's time lol.
I know this has been stated before, but the 20 res cost on the skill upgrades and the 50 res on the final Biomass on the Hive is near alien ruining.
One of the biggest advantages the current research each skill you pick is that if a Hive dies, rebuying a Hive will return the research. Losing a Hive is 40 res lost in the client, up to 110 res lost in this mod.
Wow I can not believe that I totally forgot about this! It is true that it does not make losing a hive as alien game breaking so much so that you might as well make it so if aliens lose an upgraded hive it just ends the game right there b/c after that it is basically a waste of everyone's time lol.
wouldn't that be fixed if the biomass upgrade was independent and not tied to a specific hive?
I was actually in favour of linking alien techs to the Hive it is researched in, so aliens have the risk of losing their stuff if they lose a Hive. (And on the other side are able to keep their upgrades even if they drop below the originally required Hive count for those upgrades if they are stored in one of the other Hives.)
But in my suggestion (link in my signature) was it balanced out by the alien's ability to put their tech in a Hive of their choice and without limits. If they wanted, they could put all upgrades in their heavily fortified main Hive at the cost of only researching one upgrade at a time in it instead of also using the other Hives.
Biomass is rather limiting in that regard since you MUST use every Hive to it's full capacity (well, until you get a 4th Hive), so every loss is pretty harsh for aliens and they don't have any control about what particular upgrades they are willing to sacrifice in a less important Hive.
I am not in favour of making Biomass global and unlinked from the Hive, but maybe open it up from the arbitrary limit of 3 per Hive. You could either still limit the total researchable number by the available Hives or allow any Hive to acquire unlimited amounts of Biomass but with increasing cost each time. So your 4th Biomass would cost like 70 res, which is nothing you would ever really want to go for unless you are swimming in res. 5th would be 90 res, 6th would be 110, 7th 130, 8th 150 and 9th 170 res.
It would also open some more tactical choices for the khammander's upgrade selection again:
-Do I want to go for the cheap Biomass in the Hive that is risky to hold there, or do I want to store more in our heavily fortified main Hive that is less likely to be lost in an attack. On the other hand are we totally screwed if marines managed to take that Hive down.
-Marines would have to play a psychological guessing game about which Hive is housing how much Biomass and thus a priority target.
-We may not necessarily need a third Hive to get all upgrades. If we hold enough RTs but simply don't manage to secure a third tech point, we may go for 2x 4th Biomass in each Hive, aka 140 res out of the window and then maybe another 90 res for the last upgrade. Of course does that imply that there would be no forward outposts or Tres eggs for a long time to come. And aliens would still be weakened without the third Hive's chamber upgrades.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
hey crushak,
i was playing around today with exactly this idea, and i like it for the reasons you described. A big problem with the current bio mass implementation is that it removes choices from the alien commander and you are completely screwed if you lose a hive. so allowing more biomass per hive, but with increasing costs, opens up interesting new possibilities and would give the commander again decisions to make. the decision "which upgrade first" turns into "which hive to upgrade". i would like to see "one hive play" and "three hive play" be something that is actually possible besides the standard 2 hives we currently have, where 2 hives can still remain to be the standard strategy.
i need to think more about the t.res costs and if i find values that are worth testing Ill update the mod.
Regarding giving the alien comm the option to choose abilities: in this case i would simply remove the whole bio mass. it makes no sense to introduce another "currency", which bio mass would essentially be then. right now, bio mass itself has no value, its just a term to make it easier to describe the tech progression. the moment you give it an actual value, the idea becomes quite useless and the previous upgrade system would be easier to understand (would be essentially the same but with only one currency, t.res). bio mass should simplify things and not over complicate them (remove fake choices from the commander and introduce more progression to the alien tech tree).
Comments
First up, skulk movement. It is fun to play, but oh so trolololol at times! You can get some insane speed up very fast, and this makes for incredibly deadly skulks who slingshot around corners. For the main alien games I played (before you just joined, Sewlek!), I felt almost indestructible as skulk: you can really move fast and combined with carapace, this makes you nigh on impossible for most marines to hit. In my first skulk round (I stayed skulk the entire time), I ended up on 21/6, which for a muppet like me seems a bit high! It might need toning down a bit.
Secondly, welding. The only thing I can say that surprised me about the welding was how it *didn't* actually stop a rather laboured marine turtle when we played. I didn't find it annoying (but I was biased towards it beforehand), and in general everyone was very prepared to weld up. It made for a couple of interesting moments when several of us were welding as the aliens attacked. Overall - good change. Regarding the res: I found 5 res okay for this. On our turtle on 1 res node, this made it difficult to keep buying welders (as it should be when you're massively on the back foot and should be losing!), but not impossible, and with recycling, this wasn't an issue at all.
Fade: I only played this for a little bit, but it seemed okay... Blink was all right as the first ability (I had preconceived worries about this which did not prove to be valid). I never got a chance to play with shadowstep as the marines conceded before we got it
No res while dead: the main concern I hear voiced about this is lifeform explosions. I didn't observe any lifeform explosions at all in the short time I played, and subjectively speaking, I like this change.
IP spawn time: this was at times noticeable, but not horrible as marines. Am I correct in thinking that 2 IPs max are used at any one tech point, as well (like vanilla?)?
MACs follow and weld order: thank you! This has to go into the official builds.
Celerity in combat and max speed upgrade: this would explain the 21/6 round I think. Carapace and celerity on a skulk travelling at about 280mph is a brutal, brutal combination. Perhaps a bit too much?
other observations:
Sounds. I felt like I could hear marines from a lot further away than normal. I was saying to teammates things like '2 incoming to repair right now!' only to find that they were near the power in ore processing. This was quite noticeable on all maps. Is there a change to the sound or could this be a bug that's found its way in (or is it just me imagining it?!).
The movement I experienced as alien (skulk and fade only tonight I'm afraid), felt fluid, smooth, buttery. Lovely. Apart from OMGLOLZ rocketskulking, it feels like it's in a good place.
Hitreg (or at least the feeling of hitreg!): it seemed spot on. I was playing with a ping of about 100-120 and everything felt just great. I had no problem shooting skulks, lerks and fades (aside from my own terrible aim), and they sure seemed to have no problem shooting me later on in the evening!
Thanks for all your hard work, and those who are hosting these as well. I hope my feedback is useful, I realise it's not exhaustive. Please PM me if you want anything more specific, or want me to look out for something specific next time I play here
Roo
i love this perspective.
making the movement system interesting and fun should come before balance... finding a way to prevent marine's getting curbstomped by skulks is an afterthought.
if balance comes before fun then we'd still be flipping coins instead of video games
I'd say a definite no to this. The double tap dodge was tried on the fade and it was pretty awful. It ended up in a lot of accidental dodges when precision movement was needed. The skulk would probably be even worse as the margin for error (health pool) is lower.
I agree fun definitely needs to be taken into consideration with movement. Several builds back before walljump was nerfed (when they used to be able to get more height/distance off walljumps), I had soo much fun feeling like a parkour skulk. Yeah it was OP at the time, but damn it was fun moving around the map like that.
Now that you mention it, it seems to me like I've heard skulks from much further away ever since 240 came out. So maybe this is a 240 thing, not a Sewlek thing?
I really like the res while dead feature as it allows me to be lerk more than once a match. The biomass, once i understood it, was pretty cool.
As a marine it seemed more difficult to shoot down skulks who were down a hallway. This could be because of the aforementioned speed boost or it could be because I'm a poor shot. (probably the latter).
I actually like the armory change as i felt that carrying a welder was a vital choice. It had the added effect of us traveling in at least groups of two and it seems that it gave us a little more survivability, we were actively looking around trying to figure out where the ambush would come from and were more jumpy due to our fragility.
The marine spawn timer was a little disconcerting at first but as the matches progressed it became second place.
I didn't even realize that the alien spawn time had been increased so i guess that's a good thing.
edit: If it matters i've never played NS1
Agreed on both accounts, and Shade Hive as the "weapons upgrade" tech path sounds interesting. I think having Silence/Camouflage together makes scaling its effectiveness much easier, too.
For example, # of Veils and effects on new Camouflage:
1 = complete silence when camouflaged
2 = reduced fade time, complete silence when moving
3 = reduced fade time, complete silence when moving + attacking
It is almost like the changes to drifter are meant to be an excuse for still having an alien com as for anything other than drifter control they are not really needed. Before the com would need to base upgrade decisions off of what lifeforms they are or will have soon. Got some pro fades on your team? OK get blink before leap so they can really do some damage. The complete in ability to decide any form of upgrade order is leaving the alien com high and dry.
There should be some sort of choice as to what upgrades you unlock when this would encourage more strategic play, more choices and be a lot more fun:
1 bio (always tunnels)
2 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio)
3 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink)
4 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors)
5 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno)
6 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex)
7 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
8 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
9 bio (select from: leap, gas, bio, blink, spors, xeno, vortex, stomp)
Does a Veil still cost only 5 res?
Because that would give you the maximum effect for the price of a Shell.
Not in the mod, all the evolution structures cost 20 TRes. Granted, it's only an idea, so I'm not sure what Andi has planned for Silence scaling.
after death, sometimes your camera would be focused at the hive for seemingly ages with no indicator for spawn time. then out of the blue you see an egg and spawn abruptly.
two problems:
- once i was waiting at a hive for about 20-30 seconds to spawn, there was a marine attacking the hive and no eggs. but we had 2 other hives, so why couldn't i spawn at one of those? the teams were 2v2 so it wasn't an auto-balance or 'not enough eggs' thing.
- it's kinda crappy to not see where you're about to spawn, it's an unwanted delay and if there's a marine about you just get killed again before you can get your bearings :P
Marines
- love the change to welders, more teamwork in a team based game
- movement feels a little bit like ice skates, not a huge fan of that
- ARCs feel completely hard countered by ink cloud. Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm leaning towards good
Aliens
- skulk movement feels great out of combat, but really bad in combat, again, very ice skatey. It feels really difficult to stay close to a marine while in combat like you used to be able to, which is essential for quick kills (for me anyway)
- the lerk changes seem like a really good idea, and in theory seem to make the lerk scale better, but I haven't played enough with it to say for sure
- fade movement changes are AWESOME
- celerity + combat =
- the biomass system works very well, it just feels like not a lot of choice is really given to the khamm in terms of grabbing abilities
- scalable upgrades are a great idea, but make spurs/shells/veils feel a little... silly? Also makes it feel like upgrade sniping is not near as viable of a strategy (perhaps this was the intent?)
- shade feels MUCH more viable due to the changes to drifters / ink, but the shade upgrades still feel like the worst upgrades since neither of them increases combat effectiveness (except situationally)
Bugs
- leap animation isn't playing most of the time.
Well, the issue with allowing the comm to choose ability orders is that it tends to result in cookie cutter orders that neglect the less important abilities, as we've already seen. In theory it gives the comm more variety, but in practice it just penalizes the players who are missing Blink/Spores etc. The linear order ensures that no life form is left behind, and allows for prioritizing the abilities based on their relative value.
That's exactly the wrong approach.
If commanders always neglect certain abilities when given the choice, the correct approach is to make those abilities more attractive, not make them mandatory.
Don't remove choices. Make the choices more interesting and difficult. This is a strategy game. That's what strategy is.
Looking to jump in and do some more testing this weekend, haven't been able to play much this week!
Well now you're applying a restriction to the design of these abilities that every one of them must be an equally viable first choice, and an equally viable second choice, etc. It's not going to happen. Leap applies to almost every player on your team, of course that goes first. Spores is not an underpowered ability, but nobody will ever want it before Leap because its role in the game just isn't as critical.
An example of a good tech choice is the choice of chamber type with each hive. It's reasonably plausible to make every combination of the three hive types a viable strategy. Compared to that, picking individual upgrades is not nearly as valuable a choice. Try to imagine a world in which Adrenaline gets picked before Celerity. That's never going to happen, not even if Adren gave you infinite energy, because Celerity is fundamentally a way better upgrade for skulks. So being able to choose when to research those individual upgrades doesn't really accomplish anything expect to make the game less fun for Gorges who can't choose Adrenaline until the comm eventually decides to pay for it. I think it's important to highlight choices that are meaningful, and streamline ones that aren't.
skulk movement seems to be the most controversial change (from what ppl were saying in game), but i certainly enjoy it - seems more skill based. although it might take quite a lot of getting used to.
fade movement is great once you retrain yourself to not use shadowstep as your gap-closer (really floaty for a moment), but after learning to bunny hop and gap-close with blink it improved dramatically.
as for lerk, i found the switcheroo spores/spikes to be very interesting, especially with spores being given a little range. this seemed to make lerk a much better team player instead of a poor man's fade. although lerk movement felt a little jerky, and when you touch the floor it's like b240 skulk x100 :P
the movement changes indeed feel 'floaty' as opposed to the heavy feeling we have in b241. i guess that's not everyone's cup of tea, but i really like it. they're really fun to play, it feels like you're driving a murcielago compared to an m4 sherman.
the non-movement related changes are all a step in the right direction imo.
Again not the biggest fan of the biomass system though, and the reversal of lerk abilities, I really rely on the ability to kill mines early game as lerk to assist the team with marine mine spam and found that to be rather frustrating not to be able to assist in that way.
As far as skulk movement, I am loving it entirely except with a small exception of the air control, i wish I could turn slightly more while in the air, other then that I find it wonderful.
yeah the mine situation is tricky. gorge, babblers and infestation kill mines, of course it's not an ideal situation.
it's a tough one though because i love the modified spores. seems to form a larger cloud at range; making it much easier to take down a phase gate when you can spam spores from a safe distance.
i didn't get a chance to try the modified spikes, but apparently they have increased damage. that sounds pretty exciting though - more effective late game pecking away at jetpacker/exo's.
I thought the change was from puncture -> heavy damage. Which means more damage against armored targets, but less against unarmored players. So it's situational I guess, I may have a closer look at the numbers tomorrow.
So basically we should remove abilities of the commander b/c people do not know how to command!? Under that logic we just not even have coms b/c people do not know what to do. The idea that everyone is doing the same thing anyways suggests that either A there is a balance problem with the abilities themselves causing a particular order to be universally better in all conditions or that B the people generally commanding have no will or mind of their own and thus just do the same stupid strategy every game regardless of actual conditions.
I usually com so I have not seen much of this. I very my tech path greatly from game to game. Usually I grab leap then blink but sometimes I do not even get blink if we have no good fades to use it or if no one is going to be able to at this time and a 3rd hive is available instead. I can not even recall a game where I actually did the same exact tech path 3 games in a row for hive level upgrades. The only thing I will do is always go shift->creg->shade (b/c I am still convinced that is the best order for pubs) but other than that my build orders for everything else depend on what is going on in the game.
As for the comments that if some upgrades are being ignored perhaps they should get a buff. I once again point to the idea that generally upgrade decisions should be being made based of the reality of your teams p-res and what lifeforms they currently have/plan to use soon along with who is going to get those lifeforms. The only guy that can get fade is 5/15 and we got a bunch of positive KDR lerks I think I will be going spores before blink. Already got spores I think I will go for the hive drop and I may never get blink and go right for stomp b/c by the time these leaks die it is onos egg time! These choices are something we did not have in NS1 as the upgrades came with the hive as there was no alien com. The elimination of choice in these upgrades is the removal of maco strategic value for the alien com. I do not understand why aliens would even need a human commander if there is not choice in hive level tech order.
One of the biggest advantages the current research each skill you pick is that if a Hive dies, rebuying a Hive will return the research. Losing a Hive is 40 res lost in the client, up to 110 res lost in this mod.
it should not be like a projectile, more like "spraying" (so the flyby and spray maneuvers work the same as before), but thats anyway just a visual thing. important for gameplay is that the spore clouds appear a bit in front of the lerk now
Wow I can not believe that I totally forgot about this! It is true that it does not make losing a hive as alien game breaking so much so that you might as well make it so if aliens lose an upgraded hive it just ends the game right there b/c after that it is basically a waste of everyone's time lol.
wouldn't that be fixed if the biomass upgrade was independent and not tied to a specific hive?
But in my suggestion (link in my signature) was it balanced out by the alien's ability to put their tech in a Hive of their choice and without limits. If they wanted, they could put all upgrades in their heavily fortified main Hive at the cost of only researching one upgrade at a time in it instead of also using the other Hives.
Biomass is rather limiting in that regard since you MUST use every Hive to it's full capacity (well, until you get a 4th Hive), so every loss is pretty harsh for aliens and they don't have any control about what particular upgrades they are willing to sacrifice in a less important Hive.
I am not in favour of making Biomass global and unlinked from the Hive, but maybe open it up from the arbitrary limit of 3 per Hive. You could either still limit the total researchable number by the available Hives or allow any Hive to acquire unlimited amounts of Biomass but with increasing cost each time. So your 4th Biomass would cost like 70 res, which is nothing you would ever really want to go for unless you are swimming in res. 5th would be 90 res, 6th would be 110, 7th 130, 8th 150 and 9th 170 res.
It would also open some more tactical choices for the khammander's upgrade selection again:
-Do I want to go for the cheap Biomass in the Hive that is risky to hold there, or do I want to store more in our heavily fortified main Hive that is less likely to be lost in an attack. On the other hand are we totally screwed if marines managed to take that Hive down.
-Marines would have to play a psychological guessing game about which Hive is housing how much Biomass and thus a priority target.
-We may not necessarily need a third Hive to get all upgrades. If we hold enough RTs but simply don't manage to secure a third tech point, we may go for 2x 4th Biomass in each Hive, aka 140 res out of the window and then maybe another 90 res for the last upgrade. Of course does that imply that there would be no forward outposts or Tres eggs for a long time to come. And aliens would still be weakened without the third Hive's chamber upgrades.
i was playing around today with exactly this idea, and i like it for the reasons you described. A big problem with the current bio mass implementation is that it removes choices from the alien commander and you are completely screwed if you lose a hive. so allowing more biomass per hive, but with increasing costs, opens up interesting new possibilities and would give the commander again decisions to make. the decision "which upgrade first" turns into "which hive to upgrade". i would like to see "one hive play" and "three hive play" be something that is actually possible besides the standard 2 hives we currently have, where 2 hives can still remain to be the standard strategy.
i need to think more about the t.res costs and if i find values that are worth testing Ill update the mod.
Regarding giving the alien comm the option to choose abilities: in this case i would simply remove the whole bio mass. it makes no sense to introduce another "currency", which bio mass would essentially be then. right now, bio mass itself has no value, its just a term to make it easier to describe the tech progression. the moment you give it an actual value, the idea becomes quite useless and the previous upgrade system would be easier to understand (would be essentially the same but with only one currency, t.res). bio mass should simplify things and not over complicate them (remove fake choices from the commander and introduce more progression to the alien tech tree).