yes they are useful, but compared to the other abilities, hallucination adds another layer of micro management for the alien commander to be effective. not saying its that difficult to perform, but being effective with less effort will always be preferred. using the bot code definitely changes that, since the hallucinations react and behave more similar to players without having the commander to work for it
Actually, it's extremely difficult to perform. It's easily, by far, the most challenging part of being a commander in NS2. I've been experimenting with microing hallucinations a lot in the last weeks, and people catch on pretty quickly that the aliens which move in straight lines on the ground are the ones to ignore. And to make not one but a group of hallucinations mimic the movement of a real alien (at least on the ground, since from the top-down view it's not possible to attach them to the walls or ceiling) is extremely hard, if not impossible. You can create 2-3 quickselect groups from the hallucinations and move them left/right as they approach the marines, switching between them (a lot of keypresses and clicks), but most of the time that is too difficult to do in the less than one or few seconds you have in the moment. Combine that with the fact that to create the hallucinations you have to catch the pub n00bs in a cluster (which is nigh impossible) and yeah, you get a less-useful ability.
Probably the best usage of hallucinations that I've found is when you cast it on aliens which are already right next to marines. Then the models, as they separate from the "real" alien, have some some chance to actually distract the tracking of marines. As an added "bonus," they're already moving in seemingly random directions, so it appears somewhat believable, for a second or two at least.
1) they receive all the same benefits of any player upgrades used such as umbra or enzyme etc, you sure that wasn't what was occuring? (i havent checked lua)
2) They already are seen as hallucinations? They are clearly pink models to aliens?
3) I disagree, i consider it very important to know when and where they are used for timing purposes - so i agree with the first recommendation you had with changing the color
yes they are useful, but compared to the other abilities, hallucination adds another layer of micro management for the alien commander to be effective. not saying its that difficult to perform, but being effective with less effort will always be preferred. using the bot code definitely changes that, since the hallucinations react and behave more similar to players without having the commander to work for it
I actually disagree that hallucinations REQUIRE additional micro to be effective. You cast the hallucination cloud DURING combat and for the instant the hallucinations spawn the marines have little to no idea which is real and which is fake. This is completely without your control, just having them run off in a random direction on spawn is enough to confuse the marines for an instant. Controlling them AT ALL is useless, because in the 1 second it would take you to select and move the hallucination the marines will have already either killed it, scanned it, or figured out it was the fake.
As it is, in team fights Hallucination is better than Mucus already and it was better than storm prior to the storm/enzyme merge. The biggest problem with Hallucinations is that they only work in team battles where both the alien and hallucination can be traveling away from the shooter (one moving towards his ally, one moving randomly). It is useless to use a hallucination cloud in a 1 on 1 situation because the marine will just shoot the one going for his face, and it doesn't help your team run into battle or destroy structures like storm does either.
Just remember, the basic strategy with hallucinations is NOT to move them around the map manually and create ghost attacks. That was what they did prior to 250 and it never actually worked. They are there to create a bit more chaos in an already chaotic fight, and it is generally more efficient to simply cast the hallucination cloud again rather than pick up and control the hallucinations that have already been created.
This is a very one dimensional view. First: They were also useful when you created them out of combat and send them at incoming marines. Followed by real aliens they draw bullets and attention giving the following real aliens more time to close to melee distance. At least on pubs a ground moving skulk isn't that much suspicious.
Second: Despite being useful already Shade hive is not much used. Adding another use for hallucinations (fake alert / strategical element) shouldn't be declined because of: "the basic strategy with hallucinations is NOT to move them around the map manually and create ghost attacks"
Maybe that would work, although it would be fairly unlikely, but my point was that hallucination doesn't require extra micro to be effective. The strongest use is still to just dump it on your attack group along with storm and mucus pretty much on cooldown, and it doesn't really need to be improved in that area to compare to the other two drifter abilities, or at least mucus (I still think the enzyme+storm being combined is a bit much for shift hive).
I can see maybe wanting hallucination to be even stronger than the other two drifter abilities just to get shade hive played more, but I think it's reasonably balanced if not a bit OP already.
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Also, how did the bot AI affect server performance? was it noticeable?
Actually, it's extremely difficult to perform. It's easily, by far, the most challenging part of being a commander in NS2. I've been experimenting with microing hallucinations a lot in the last weeks, and people catch on pretty quickly that the aliens which move in straight lines on the ground are the ones to ignore. And to make not one but a group of hallucinations mimic the movement of a real alien (at least on the ground, since from the top-down view it's not possible to attach them to the walls or ceiling) is extremely hard, if not impossible. You can create 2-3 quickselect groups from the hallucinations and move them left/right as they approach the marines, switching between them (a lot of keypresses and clicks), but most of the time that is too difficult to do in the less than one or few seconds you have in the moment. Combine that with the fact that to create the hallucinations you have to catch the pub n00bs in a cluster (which is nigh impossible) and yeah, you get a less-useful ability.
Probably the best usage of hallucinations that I've found is when you cast it on aliens which are already right next to marines. Then the models, as they separate from the "real" alien, have some some chance to actually distract the tracking of marines. As an added "bonus," they're already moving in seemingly random directions, so it appears somewhat believable, for a second or two at least.
They already give vision as far as I've noticed (before they die from a single bullet -_- ). IMO it's not OP.
1) they receive all the same benefits of any player upgrades used such as umbra or enzyme etc, you sure that wasn't what was occuring? (i havent checked lua)
2) They already are seen as hallucinations? They are clearly pink models to aliens?
3) I disagree, i consider it very important to know when and where they are used for timing purposes - so i agree with the first recommendation you had with changing the color
I actually disagree that hallucinations REQUIRE additional micro to be effective. You cast the hallucination cloud DURING combat and for the instant the hallucinations spawn the marines have little to no idea which is real and which is fake. This is completely without your control, just having them run off in a random direction on spawn is enough to confuse the marines for an instant. Controlling them AT ALL is useless, because in the 1 second it would take you to select and move the hallucination the marines will have already either killed it, scanned it, or figured out it was the fake.
As it is, in team fights Hallucination is better than Mucus already and it was better than storm prior to the storm/enzyme merge. The biggest problem with Hallucinations is that they only work in team battles where both the alien and hallucination can be traveling away from the shooter (one moving towards his ally, one moving randomly). It is useless to use a hallucination cloud in a 1 on 1 situation because the marine will just shoot the one going for his face, and it doesn't help your team run into battle or destroy structures like storm does either.
Just remember, the basic strategy with hallucinations is NOT to move them around the map manually and create ghost attacks. That was what they did prior to 250 and it never actually worked. They are there to create a bit more chaos in an already chaotic fight, and it is generally more efficient to simply cast the hallucination cloud again rather than pick up and control the hallucinations that have already been created.
Second: Despite being useful already Shade hive is not much used. Adding another use for hallucinations (fake alert / strategical element) shouldn't be declined because of: "the basic strategy with hallucinations is NOT to move them around the map manually and create ghost attacks"
Now they will. And it will work. So what?
I can see maybe wanting hallucination to be even stronger than the other two drifter abilities just to get shade hive played more, but I think it's reasonably balanced if not a bit OP already.