Meh, as this is kinda like a suggestion and idea thread for the devs to gather ideas... i just throw my 2 cents into the pot and hope they will get a consideration. Brainstorm inc.
What about some "new" ideas? - Focus and Redemption are so NS1'ish
- Lifeform refund upgrade (was there in beta). E.g. you're able to reevolve to any lifeform. Reevolve time is time you needed for that lifeform you were. If you make it you get 33/66/100% refunded. If not, you get % of Evolvmeter refunded.
- Merge Upgrade Veil upgrade which allows you to merge two upgrades from other chambers but you won't get the full upgrade, only 10%/23%/40% of each.
- Not Focus: Instead of dealing more damage, increase meele attack range & speed. Sniper skulkbite inc! Move attack damage to COmmander ability ( Drifter)
-Pheromones: Aliens creates a infestation path like pheromones which dissipates if not used by the same alien regularly. Such infestation must be connected to the hive network (cysts/tunnel). You can't create an infestation area with this upgrade. Multiple instances do not stack. If a marines steps on this kind of infestation, it disappears. --> additional damage to structures --> usable for advanced positions w/o cyst and building support --> Draw things on the floor as sweaty gorge --> Create a slide path as gorge
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
I think Shade hive would be far stronger if the drifter ability wasn't so difficult to use, because that is the only real strongsuit of the hive type.
Commanders who can micro their drifters well enough to create hallucinations at precisely the right moment will just decimate marines for the most part.
The problem is the skill required to do so.. hell.. I feel like it's such a high requirement most alien commanders never even attempt to create hallucinations in combat at all.
So what if the castable drifter ability was modified?
What if once you casted it on an alien.. they changed color / effects for the alien commander so they know it was applied (marines cant tell the difference).. and the next time the alien receives damage the hallucination automatically appears?
This would make hallucinations far more used than they are currently, and provide a much stronger shade hive as it'd no longer be reliant on a commander who can micro perfectly.
Ok maybe adrenaline needs to be buffed but that's another problem, won't be fixed by moving the wrong thing in the wrong category.
The Shade Hive is not just a "deception" hive. It's much more than that. It's a perception and awareness Hive. ... Aura wouldn't fit on a Crag Hive because a Crag Hive is about preservation. Plus, by moving Aura to Crag, you buff Crag even more and nerf current Shade into oblivion.
Most importantly, it tackles current issues such a Silence + Celerity, Phantom being too overpowered on a single ability, and a lack of pubs willing to go Shade. Players will be much more keen on picking a Shade Hive with something like Focus if it is available.
Mmmh I don't know it says "path of confusion and deception" and beside aura there's really nothing that contributes to perception and awareness, ok maybe scouting with halucination.
Not exactly the kind of things you see many coms do.
What aura does is 99% defensive, that's why I think it fits in crag hive better. Starting shade hive being weaker is another problem that has more to do with Ink being too situational, shade effect overlapping with cloaking upgrades and its lack of tools to help develop the economy. Crag can use heal wave to give enough time for aliens to regroup and clear marines, Echo can give the ability to transfer the RT under attack to a safe spot, shade adds nothing in this regard.
Gone would be the days of the Aura + Celerity Fade, you'd see new stuff..
Not sure if replacing it with silence + aura is better ...
I prefer regen on skulks, but will go carapace if can't get any kills.
I prefer carapace on gorge, because I can just heal myself.
I prefer regen on lerk, but will go carapace if I keep getting dangerously low with little reward.
I don't fade often, but carapace because I am a bad fade.
I nearly always go regen on onos. If I have a dedicated gorge I will go carapace, but even then I still prefer regen.
In my opinion, regeneration is always better than carapace because it is a more active upgrade than carapace. With regen, if I take a little chip damage, I go hide for a moment. As a regen lerk, I will dive in and out of cover denying marines any and all chip damage as I kill them. As an onos, I heal like 80 health a second which is incredible. Basically every half shotgun shot is meaningless with regen.
If I am in a situation where I need carapace, then it is probably a situation I shouldn't be in to begin with.
Imo regen just heals too damn slowly to be any good. I only ever pick it when resbiting as a skulk or if I'm lerking super early game - and since most people go shift first that's not exactly frequent. It doesn't help that the super loud sound effect makes it hard to hide and heal. Also, Onos gain an unholy amount of armor from carapace; as a rather aggressive Onos player, this is very welcome.
Regen works in combat, and is the only reason it is useful.
I used to be a carapace onos until I tried regen onos. I will never go back. Of all lifeforms, it is most powerful on the onos. Think about how long it takes to reload an lmg/shotgun. Every second it takes the onos heals 80 health. If a single marine empties his clip into your onos, your almost fully healed by the time he reloads. If its two marines, your are barely scratched. I feel pretty comfortable taking on 3 non jetpack marines with regen. A carapace onos could do that, but he would then have to run back to the hive and heal. Regen onos is ready to go almost immediately.
With skulk and lerk, it could be a difference in playstyle. I am almost always res biting as skulk and killing marines along the way. I dedicate myself to res biting until I get lerk/onos res.
Lerk and regen is super strong, but you got to be able to make it work. It is like celerity and fade. If you need adrenaline to play fade, then obviously you can't use celerity. It is similar with carapace.
The regen sound doesn't bother me. I don't often hide and heal. I often duck behind cover for a moment to heal a little bit before shooting back out. If I get low low I typically try to make it to a hive before I hide, that is unless I am pinched. I don't get pinched too often, but that could be because I play on 8v8 servers mostly.
If you can't tell, crag hive is my favorite hive. Shift hive is great for commanders, but I don't like it as a player. I can do much much more with regen than I can with celerity. Speed is helpful, but not as useful as regen is in my gameplay.
Well, yeah. The first upgrade would not do twice the damage. Three levels. 33% extra damage is a lot on the first level, but it still requires two bites and a parasite, and the chamber wouldn't be done until after the first engagement. Still, after that, things get out of hand. I think maybe balancing it around Armor 1 or Armor 2 would be best. Three bites instead of four on second chamber versus Armor 2. Things like that. Where early on the impact is rather minimal, but later on things get better. It could also serve as the function replacement for the tentative ability of giving Fades stab as a replacement effect for swipe, which is currently a planned thing.
Make it too weak and shade is stil not a viable opening hive, make it strong and marines get the really frustrating experience from ns1 where you dead / almost dead in 1 bite.
Also with focus i bet you get the following: aliens drop 3 upgrades for focus III right at the start, see how the first 2 minutes play out, when it goes bad they concede.
Never been a big fan of Focus really.
I think Shade hive would be far stronger if the drifter ability wasn't so difficult to use
This would make hallucinations far more used than they are currently, and provide a much stronger shade hive as it'd no longer be reliant on a commander who can micro perfectly.
Halucinations are fine, there's a button in the drifter menu that selects all halucinations. And if the halucination appear automatically after you hit something that would be a total nerf and remove pack play based on drifter hallucination support.
I used to be a carapace onos until I tried regen onos. I will never go back.
.
Onos also benefit from having high armor to health ratio which also contributes to allowing them to take a lot of damage and recover quickly, but carapace still can be helpful in some cases just like adrenaline can allow a skulk to land many parasite in a row, fades to be more dodgy etc
So I think you're in the right when saying upgrades should have different playstyles and be equally useful.
Focus was a shadehive ability which increased damage of bites / slashes etc with a tradeoff of reduced attackspeed.
So aliens needed to make sure they hit (big damage) but if you miss it takes really long before you can bite / slash again.
I think Shade hive would be far stronger if the drifter ability wasn't so difficult to use, because that is the only real strongsuit of the hive type.
Commanders who can micro their drifters well enough to create hallucinations at precisely the right moment will just decimate marines for the most part.
The problem is the skill required to do so.. hell.. I feel like it's such a high requirement most alien commanders never even attempt to create hallucinations in combat at all.
So what if the castable drifter ability was modified?
What if once you casted it on an alien.. they changed color / effects for the alien commander so they know it was applied (marines cant tell the difference).. and the next time the alien receives damage the hallucination automatically appears?
This would make hallucinations far more used than they are currently, and provide a much stronger shade hive as it'd no longer be reliant on a commander who can micro perfectly.
The main problem with drifter abilities is that my drifters are BUSY. Or they are on the other side of the map because they were busy a moment ago. Alien engagements can be anywhere at any time but the drifters are usually used as far away from the fighting as possible.
I like using drifters in combat, but I only ever get to do it when I have the money to build half a dozen of them (so 3+ can be building structures while 2-3 are spaced near hot zones) OR when I'm already in a bad spot and can't really do anything else useful, like being stuck on one base fighting over my naturals.
Regen works in combat, and is the only reason it is useful.
I used to be a carapace onos until I tried regen onos. I will never go back. Of all lifeforms, it is most powerful on the onos. Think about how long it takes to reload an lmg/shotgun. Every second it takes the onos heals 80 health. If a single marine empties his clip into your onos, your almost fully healed by the time he reloads. If its two marines, your are barely scratched. I feel pretty comfortable taking on 3 non jetpack marines with regen. A carapace onos could do that, but he would then have to run back to the hive and heal. Regen onos is ready to go almost immediately.
With skulk and lerk, it could be a difference in playstyle. I am almost always res biting as skulk and killing marines along the way. I dedicate myself to res biting until I get lerk/onos res.
Lerk and regen is super strong, but you got to be able to make it work. It is like celerity and fade. If you need adrenaline to play fade, then obviously you can't use celerity. It is similar with carapace.
The regen sound doesn't bother me. I don't often hide and heal. I often duck behind cover for a moment to heal a little bit before shooting back out. If I get low low I typically try to make it to a hive before I hide, that is unless I am pinched. I don't get pinched too often, but that could be because I play on 8v8 servers mostly.
If you can't tell, crag hive is my favorite hive. Shift hive is great for commanders, but I don't like it as a player. I can do much much more with regen than I can with celerity. Speed is helpful, but not as useful as regen is in my gameplay.
Looks like I'm going to try regen onos one of these days, then.
Focus was a shadehive ability which increased damage of bites / slashes etc with a tradeoff of reduced attackspeed.
So aliens needed to make sure they hit (big damage) but if you miss it takes really long before you can bite / slash again.
Sounds reasonable but upgrades need to be simple, if it requires to change all the animations etc.. won't be worth it.
Focus was a shadehive ability which increased damage of bites / slashes etc with a tradeoff of reduced attackspeed.
So aliens needed to make sure they hit (big damage) but if you miss it takes really long before you can bite / slash again.
Sounds reasonable but upgrades need to be simple, if it requires to change all the animations etc.. won't be worth it.
It requires no change to any animation...
It just makes your primary attack (bite, swipe, spit, gore) do more damage while being slower..
moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Redemption should halve the rate at which you heal and teleport you to the nearest hive. This would allow motivated Marines to rush into the hive and still kill you.
moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
edited May 2016
Here's an idea for another crag hive upgrade.
Reprieve - All damage you take is delayed by 2 seconds.
This lets skulks close the distance against a group of marines to deal some damage, gives gorges a little more time to heal up, lets aliens with a nearby healing station take more risks.
Reprieve - All damage you take is delayed by 2 seconds.
This lets skulks close the distance against a group of marines to deal some damage, gives gorges a little more time to heal up, lets aliens with a nearby healing station take more risks.
I like this idea for it's creativity, but you already have to let skulks close in a lot to get a guaranteed kill with a shotgun. In my experience there's only a split second between the shotgun hitting and the skulk biting; An ability like this would allow skulks to wittle down marines way too easily.
Reprieve - All damage you take is delayed by 2 seconds.
This lets skulks close the distance against a group of marines to deal some damage, gives gorges a little more time to heal up, lets aliens with a nearby healing station take more risks.
I'm a bit hesitant due to my thoughts on 1v1 engagements, but could be cool. 2s is a long time, though.
Reprieve - All damage you take is delayed by 2 seconds.
This lets skulks close the distance against a group of marines to deal some damage, gives gorges a little more time to heal up, lets aliens with a nearby healing station take more risks.
I like this idea for it's creativity, but you already have to let skulks close in a lot to get a guaranteed kill with a shotgun. In my experience there's only a split second between the shotgun hitting and the skulk biting; An ability like this would allow skulks to wittle down marines way too easily.
Reprieve - All damage you take is delayed by 2 seconds.
This lets skulks close the distance against a group of marines to deal some damage, gives gorges a little more time to heal up, lets aliens with a nearby healing station take more risks.
I'm a bit hesitant due to my thoughts on 1v1 engagements, but could be cool. 2s is a long time, though.
The durations would have to be tweaked (maybe per lifeform?) The goal would be to make it a little better for closing the gap than either celerity or carapace (since you don't move faster in general, and die afterwards.)
Reprieve - All damage you take is delayed by 2 seconds.
This lets skulks close the distance against a group of marines to deal some damage, gives gorges a little more time to heal up, lets aliens with a nearby healing station take more risks.
I don't know if its a good idea (and 2s is way too long), but I can say that it fits the game much better than chance to revive or return res.
Reprieve - All damage you take is delayed by 2 seconds.
This lets skulks close the distance against a group of marines to deal some damage, gives gorges a little more time to heal up, lets aliens with a nearby healing station take more risks.
I don't know if its a good idea (and 2s is way too long), but I can say that it fits the game much better than chance to revive or return res.
How about 1s for skulk, 2s for gorge, 3s for lerk, 4s for fade, and 5s for onos?
I think 5s is enough time to make meaningful use of a suicide onos.
And if you want a better name than reprieve, how about atavism?
The main problem with drifter abilities is that my drifters are BUSY. Or they are on the other side of the map because they were busy a moment ago. Alien engagements can be anywhere at any time but the drifters are usually used as far away from the fighting as possible.
I like using drifters in combat, but I only ever get to do it when I have the money to build half a dozen of them (so 3+ can be building structures while 2-3 are spaced near hot zones) OR when I'm already in a bad spot and can't really do anything else useful, like being stuck on one base fighting over my naturals.
It sounds like you're just adding supporting arguments to my idea, so idk why you disagreed with it.. Did you not understand that you could cast it on an alien passing by your busy drifter near your base or naturals?
The main problem with drifter abilities is that my drifters are BUSY. Or they are on the other side of the map because they were busy a moment ago. Alien engagements can be anywhere at any time but the drifters are usually used as far away from the fighting as possible.
I like using drifters in combat, but I only ever get to do it when I have the money to build half a dozen of them (so 3+ can be building structures while 2-3 are spaced near hot zones) OR when I'm already in a bad spot and can't really do anything else useful, like being stuck on one base fighting over my naturals.
It sounds like you're just adding supporting arguments to my idea, so idk why you disagreed with it.. Did you not understand that you could cast it on an alien passing by your busy drifter near your base or naturals?
Did I say I disagreed?
I just disagree that it's a skill problem to start with. While microing drifters definitely takes skill, the inability to do so usually stems from a strategy problem instead, not having drifters available to micro to begin with.
Reprieve - All damage you take is delayed by 2 seconds.
This lets skulks close the distance against a group of marines to deal some damage, gives gorges a little more time to heal up, lets aliens with a nearby healing station take more risks.
I have two problems with this idea:
1. It really hurts the responsiveness of combat for marines shooting skulks. Very frustrating to land a perfect 150 damage and then get killed anyway. Plus the health bar is now showing the marine false information.
2. Useless for every other lifeform, since the only real value of it vs. Carapace/Regen is for suicide attacks.
Reprieve - All damage you take is delayed by 2 seconds.
This lets skulks close the distance against a group of marines to deal some damage, gives gorges a little more time to heal up, lets aliens with a nearby healing station take more risks.
Damage lag, sounds like a wonderful upgrade on top of server lag and performance lag.
The final version of NS1's upgrades were the result of many years of balance changes and improvements to get to where they are at, what we have currently in NS2 has clear implementation problems and balance issues. I'd like to see us start from where NS1 3.2 left off in regards to upgrade balance before continuing to change things for the sake of being different.
Comments
What about some "new" ideas? - Focus and Redemption are so NS1'ish
- Lifeform refund upgrade (was there in beta). E.g. you're able to reevolve to any lifeform. Reevolve time is time you needed for that lifeform you were. If you make it you get 33/66/100% refunded. If not, you get % of Evolvmeter refunded.
- Merge Upgrade Veil upgrade which allows you to merge two upgrades from other chambers but you won't get the full upgrade, only 10%/23%/40% of each.
- Not Focus: Instead of dealing more damage, increase meele attack range & speed. Sniper skulkbite inc! Move attack damage to COmmander ability ( Drifter)
-Pheromones: Aliens creates a infestation path like pheromones which dissipates if not used by the same alien regularly. Such infestation must be connected to the hive network (cysts/tunnel). You can't create an infestation area with this upgrade. Multiple instances do not stack. If a marines steps on this kind of infestation, it disappears. --> additional damage to structures --> usable for advanced positions w/o cyst and building support --> Draw things on the floor as sweaty gorge --> Create a slide path as gorge
Ideas...
Commanders who can micro their drifters well enough to create hallucinations at precisely the right moment will just decimate marines for the most part.
The problem is the skill required to do so.. hell.. I feel like it's such a high requirement most alien commanders never even attempt to create hallucinations in combat at all.
So what if the castable drifter ability was modified?
What if once you casted it on an alien.. they changed color / effects for the alien commander so they know it was applied (marines cant tell the difference).. and the next time the alien receives damage the hallucination automatically appears?
This would make hallucinations far more used than they are currently, and provide a much stronger shade hive as it'd no longer be reliant on a commander who can micro perfectly.
Mmmh I don't know it says "path of confusion and deception" and beside aura there's really nothing that contributes to perception and awareness, ok maybe scouting with halucination.
Not exactly the kind of things you see many coms do.
What aura does is 99% defensive, that's why I think it fits in crag hive better.
Starting shade hive being weaker is another problem that has more to do with Ink being too situational, shade effect overlapping with cloaking upgrades and its lack of tools to help develop the economy. Crag can use heal wave to give enough time for aliens to regroup and clear marines, Echo can give the ability to transfer the RT under attack to a safe spot, shade adds nothing in this regard. Not sure if replacing it with silence + aura is better ...
Imo regen just heals too damn slowly to be any good. I only ever pick it when resbiting as a skulk or if I'm lerking super early game - and since most people go shift first that's not exactly frequent. It doesn't help that the super loud sound effect makes it hard to hide and heal. Also, Onos gain an unholy amount of armor from carapace; as a rather aggressive Onos player, this is very welcome.
Does regen still not work in combat, btw?
I used to be a carapace onos until I tried regen onos. I will never go back. Of all lifeforms, it is most powerful on the onos. Think about how long it takes to reload an lmg/shotgun. Every second it takes the onos heals 80 health. If a single marine empties his clip into your onos, your almost fully healed by the time he reloads. If its two marines, your are barely scratched. I feel pretty comfortable taking on 3 non jetpack marines with regen. A carapace onos could do that, but he would then have to run back to the hive and heal. Regen onos is ready to go almost immediately.
With skulk and lerk, it could be a difference in playstyle. I am almost always res biting as skulk and killing marines along the way. I dedicate myself to res biting until I get lerk/onos res.
Lerk and regen is super strong, but you got to be able to make it work. It is like celerity and fade. If you need adrenaline to play fade, then obviously you can't use celerity. It is similar with carapace.
The regen sound doesn't bother me. I don't often hide and heal. I often duck behind cover for a moment to heal a little bit before shooting back out. If I get low low I typically try to make it to a hive before I hide, that is unless I am pinched. I don't get pinched too often, but that could be because I play on 8v8 servers mostly.
If you can't tell, crag hive is my favorite hive. Shift hive is great for commanders, but I don't like it as a player. I can do much much more with regen than I can with celerity. Speed is helpful, but not as useful as regen is in my gameplay.
Make it too weak and shade is stil not a viable opening hive, make it strong and marines get the really frustrating experience from ns1 where you dead / almost dead in 1 bite.
Also with focus i bet you get the following: aliens drop 3 upgrades for focus III right at the start, see how the first 2 minutes play out, when it goes bad they concede.
Never been a big fan of Focus really.
Halucinations are fine, there's a button in the drifter menu that selects all halucinations. And if the halucination appear automatically after you hit something that would be a total nerf and remove pack play based on drifter hallucination support.
Onos also benefit from having high armor to health ratio which also contributes to allowing them to take a lot of damage and recover quickly, but carapace still can be helpful in some cases just like adrenaline can allow a skulk to land many parasite in a row, fades to be more dodgy etc
So I think you're in the right when saying upgrades should have different playstyles and be equally useful.
Focus was a shadehive ability which increased damage of bites / slashes etc with a tradeoff of reduced attackspeed.
So aliens needed to make sure they hit (big damage) but if you miss it takes really long before you can bite / slash again.
The main problem with drifter abilities is that my drifters are BUSY. Or they are on the other side of the map because they were busy a moment ago. Alien engagements can be anywhere at any time but the drifters are usually used as far away from the fighting as possible.
I like using drifters in combat, but I only ever get to do it when I have the money to build half a dozen of them (so 3+ can be building structures while 2-3 are spaced near hot zones) OR when I'm already in a bad spot and can't really do anything else useful, like being stuck on one base fighting over my naturals.
Looks like I'm going to try regen onos one of these days, then.
One of those that are stuck in the same corridor half of the game? They are useless.
Eh, what?
Sounds reasonable but upgrades need to be simple, if it requires to change all the animations etc.. won't be worth it.
It requires no change to any animation...
It just makes your primary attack (bite, swipe, spit, gore) do more damage while being slower..
Reprieve - All damage you take is delayed by 2 seconds.
This lets skulks close the distance against a group of marines to deal some damage, gives gorges a little more time to heal up, lets aliens with a nearby healing station take more risks.
I like this idea for it's creativity, but you already have to let skulks close in a lot to get a guaranteed kill with a shotgun. In my experience there's only a split second between the shotgun hitting and the skulk biting; An ability like this would allow skulks to wittle down marines way too easily.
I'm a bit hesitant due to my thoughts on 1v1 engagements, but could be cool. 2s is a long time, though.
The durations would have to be tweaked (maybe per lifeform?) The goal would be to make it a little better for closing the gap than either celerity or carapace (since you don't move faster in general, and die afterwards.)
I don't know if its a good idea (and 2s is way too long), but I can say that it fits the game much better than chance to revive or return res.
Anonymity: No damage feedback or health information is available to marines. No health bars, no damage numbers, no blood.
How about 1s for skulk, 2s for gorge, 3s for lerk, 4s for fade, and 5s for onos?
I think 5s is enough time to make meaningful use of a suicide onos.
And if you want a better name than reprieve, how about atavism?
It sounds like you're just adding supporting arguments to my idea, so idk why you disagreed with it.. Did you not understand that you could cast it on an alien passing by your busy drifter near your base or naturals?
Did I say I disagreed?
I just disagree that it's a skill problem to start with. While microing drifters definitely takes skill, the inability to do so usually stems from a strategy problem instead, not having drifters available to micro to begin with.
As for your latest response, I concur, but for some reason its just far more likely to see enzyme even if hallucinations are available.
I have two problems with this idea:
1. It really hurts the responsiveness of combat for marines shooting skulks. Very frustrating to land a perfect 150 damage and then get killed anyway. Plus the health bar is now showing the marine false information.
2. Useless for every other lifeform, since the only real value of it vs. Carapace/Regen is for suicide attacks.
I like this ideas, need more people giving ideas for original upgrades, we don't have to copy paste NS1.
Damage lag, sounds like a wonderful upgrade on top of server lag and performance lag.
Even better, let's make it seem like someone is using godmode or that the server died when you stop getting any feedback at all during an engagement.
The final version of NS1's upgrades were the result of many years of balance changes and improvements to get to where they are at, what we have currently in NS2 has clear implementation problems and balance issues. I'd like to see us start from where NS1 3.2 left off in regards to upgrade balance before continuing to change things for the sake of being different.