Make marine skin change to show loss of armour/health

TomTom

I am aware that this may very well increase the games already substantial skill ceiling and that experienced players will likely be the ones that profit most from this change. Still though, I feel that it would add to the depth of NS2's core gameplay, which we all love and continue to stick around for. If not for vanilla, it may also be something to consider for the comp mod.

Some benefits would be:
An improved feel of the game's general design and depth (great for new players), because changing player textures are awesome!
Skilled aliens will be able to judge engagements with greater precision and prioritize weak targets (core depth; a plus in mho).
New tactical possibilities! For example: baiting lifeforms with parasited low health marines. This is assuming that texture changes would be added to parasited marine silhouettes.
Possible downsides:
There is no question that this idea would cater to aliens, which may slightly affect game balance.
Other effects:
Increased importance of marine teamwork (i.e. welding, meds) since it will be easier for aliens to target marines with no armor or low health. This may put too much emphasis on teamwork to maintain game balance in pub play. See bottom notes on balance.

I think we can agree that this would add nicely to NS2's gameplay. Whether the effect this has on game balance is acceptable at this time is another topic altogether.

Some things that would determine effect on balance:
Levels of remaining armor/health at which visual changes occur.
Degree/noticeability of changes.
Whether changes will be made noticeable on parasited marine silhouettes.

Thoughts?

edit: Changed title for clarity.

d0ped0g

A couple of extra downsides:

Aliens already have an upgrade called aura that does this. Whilst it would not make this upgrade completely irrelevant, as it would still have the ability to see the location of nearby marines through walls without parasite, it would be a pretty big nerf to this upgrade. There would be even less incentive to choose Shade Hive, which is already considered underpowered compared to crag/shift. Of course, shade could receive some buffs to compensate for this, but I'm not sure how you would go about doing this.

Decreased importance of alien teamwork. Often, if I nearly kill a marine in an engagement, if there is another alien near enough to kill the marine before he might be medded, I will say over the mic "marine in [location] is 1 bite/parasite from dying" so they know whether to just parasite from a distance to get the kill, or can take more liberties in the engagement because he/she knows they only have to get one bite in (thus might not have to be as sneaky or engage in a more favourable location to get the kill). Or if there's a group of marines, and somebody says over the mic that the parasited marine is wounded, any aliens attacking know to prioritize the parasited marine.

SantaClaws

I'm not sure it's particularly easy to re-skin. So I think this sort of thing may require a lot more work than you realize. Moreover, where does this stop? Should we also add gaping wounds and stuff for marines with low health?

I think it would be great - wether it will require rebalancing or not is not the issue I don't think. It's wether or not it's actually worth the effort that's the big question. I'm not an expert, but I doubt it's that easy to implement.

coolitic

Imo wouldn't look nice based on how I imagine it, so no for fx.

As for gameplay, aliens have aura.

Kouji_San

Could be a shader right, like the damage/smoke/fire on structures?

TomTom

After reading your posts I've decided that it should trigger only when armor is depleted. This should keep it useful for aliens without taking away from the use of aura. Also, reskinning is likely not an option due to amount of work involved. Some mild particle effect, bleeding animations for example, would likely be most practical. It should be something subtle you can't pick up on from a distance, especially with alien vision on, thereby retaining the effectiveness of aura. Having said that:

Aliens already have an upgrade called aura that does this. Whilst it would not make this upgrade completely irrelevant, as it would still have the ability to see the location of nearby marines through walls without parasite, it would be a pretty big nerf to this upgrade. There would be even less incentive to choose Shade Hive, which is already considered underpowered compared to crag/shift. Of course, shade could receive some buffs to compensate for this, but I'm not sure how you would go about doing this.

Aura would still retain it's usefulness, not only because you can see through walls but because aura shows a marines actual health past the loss of armor. And I doubt a lot of people go shade hive with aura in mind anyway.

Decreased importance of alien teamwork. Often, if I nearly kill a marine in an engagement, if there is another alien near enough to kill the marine before he might be medded, I will say over the mic "marine in [location] is 1 bite/parasite from dying" so they know whether to just parasite from a distance to get the kill, or can take more liberties in the engagement because he/she knows they only have to get one bite in (thus might not have to be as sneaky or engage in a more favorable location to get the kill). Or if there's a group of marines, and somebody says over the mic that the parasited marine is wounded, any aliens attacking know to prioritize the parasited marine.

Team work should not be impacted by the revised effect. In the stated scenario, if the skulk was close enough to notice the effect e.i. in the same engagement, he should be trying to finish that marine anyway. If he wasn't, calling it to your team would still be useful, however it would give the marine commander plenty of time to med that marine.

Could be a shader right, like the damage/smoke/fire on structures?

Yes, something along those lines is what I now envision.

RadimaX

Sorry but this was all i could think of just had to throw it together quick in photoshop first

AurOn2

Pft. Just put blue holes (which stretch into infinity) On them.
Blue holes, you ask? Nanites, Marines are mearly Nanites.

TomTom

Wow, nicely done, RadimaX! Loving the detail. The third one's just a parasite away... =P~

meatmachine

RadimaX wrote: »

Sorry but this was all i could think of just had to throw it together quick in photoshop first

I hate to be a buzzkill here, but wouldnt simple bloody bitemark decals on the playermodels (if thats possible) be more appropriate? And much simpler than a skin change depending on HP. Getting medded could magically remove teh decals (perhaps even with sparkly nanite effects )
Like fo reeeeealls

RadimaX

lol i made his face like doom as a joke, but technically speaking the infestation adds decal overlays to the geometry, and with that already implemented into the game all they would need to do was change minimal infestation color to red and overlay the marine skin with various % of blood, lets say u take 50% damade it would overlay 50% of the marines armor with blood splatter (minimal infestation, but it is instead just 1 new blood.dds texture that is red). This would also render useless when skulks have nightvision, so pretty much always and i think time could be better spent on fixing the crashing of the game rather then adding new features that prop would make it even worse than it already is lol. As i daid the image was qucikly thrown together after what came to my mind reading the title of the post.