Well, personally I like the suggested changes to 1.04f with the cloaking, though I haven't tried it out yet.
Maybe something possible would be that the number of hives you have increases the effectiveness of cloaking from a base standpoint. So 1 sensory chamber and no hives means you'd have something between 33-50% cloak. 3 sensory chamber and no hives still gets you 33-50% cloak, but you can cloak much faster. 1 hive would increase this maybe between 50-66%? And 2 hives would make it the value it would be in 1.04f (or g, or whatever level they're on now.), be it 80-90%. Three hives (which 90% of the time means endgame) would provide players with full cloak.
Or, an alternative set of numbers is 33-50% cloak 0 hives, 80% cloak 1 hive, 90% 2 hives, and 100% 3 hives? That would make it viable early-game weapon, gradually increasing the more hives the team has.
Yet still another alternative (I'm just bursting with ideas <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> ) would be that with cloaking you gradually cloak at a... doh, I don't know the mathematical term for this. Inverse square? Basically, you start cloaking, then gradually increase cloak, but the rate at which you increase would be much slower the further on, but never quite reaching 100%. But more chambers would get a much faster rate. So, let's say you have 1 chamber up. You start to cloak, and after a few seconds you're at 50%. A few seconds more, you're only at 66%. Several seconds later, and you're at 75%. Wait half a minute more, and you're at 85%. A minute later finds you at 90%. 5 minutes later you're at 95%. Half an hour later, you're at 99%. The more sensory chambers, the quicker you cloak, so with 3 chambers you get to 85% cloaking in a few seconds. Would it be possible to use this? As in, you gradually fade smoothly?
seroiusly, why can't one of the sensory upgrades just mean aliens version of motion tracking, where the range is equal to an observatory at lv3, and of course less at lower levels..
One thing to keep in mind is that, in theory, this changes are being made to make the different upgrade options more viable at the start/middle of the game. However, in the few 1.04 games I've played, I still have yet to see a sensory built at any point other than after the 3rd hive goes up. Of course, it could just be that we're too ingrained into the doctrine of def 1st, movement 2nd, but it still seems to me that, especially early on in terms of their value to the kharaa, sensory is not even close to on-par with either movement or def.
Movement has some kinda handy upgrades even early on- celerity to make greased-lightning-fast skulks, adrenaline to give lerks a little more flying and shooting time before they run out of juice, and silencing for more subtle skulk movements and ambushings, not to mention setting it up in an outpost(i.e. if you take over mess hall or somesuch important non-hive location) gives you a quick way to hop back to your hive. Def is ENORMOUSLY useful- carapace and regen for obvious reasons, redemption(kinda, I'm actually glad they're improving this one, makes it a little more viable choice compared to the others), AND it heals up buildings and units next to it.
That leaves sensory....Cloak can be useful, on par with celerity or silence for helping skulk ambushes, but scent of fear and hivesight? Scent of fear is kinda handy, but early on when it's skulks vs. non-upgraded LA/LMG marines, either the marines will die or the skulks, there's not a lot of middle ground of wounded troops surviving, and if the skulks get trounced you can see where it happened and from that get a sense of where the marines are going and what they're doing(especially if you have decent team communication).
Then there's enhanced hivesight...Has anyone ever actually used it? I don't especially want to bash it myself, having never actually used it before, but can anyone out there that has used it vouch for it's lack of value, ESPECIALLY early in the game? Or am I off the deep end on that? My gut instinct and fact that I've never even HEARD of anyone using it tells me that it needs some drastic reworking- perhaps something for 1.1? Either way, with 1.1 or 1.04, it needs serious help to come even close to being as valuable as any other upgrade. But how? Given that hive sight is that nifty feature that provides us with the little circles all over indicating marines, hives, kharaa under attack, etc., it seems to me that enhancing it should improve the way hive sight works, either by showing things that were not previously available, or by providing more info about things that hivesight shows already.
The question is, which and how so...Show all location of all marines? Nice, and it would make sensory much more attractive early on, but it would completely negate the value of scent of fear, and it's far too close to marines motion tracking. Not to mention skulks already do a lot of ambush work and excell at it, so something like that could make them TOO good at ambushing. Show names/hitpoints for marines already detected by hive sight? Too much info to easily show especially when a large group is detected, plus it's just not that terribly useful, and seems too much like something that an improved version of scent of fear would have. What about...structure detection? Set it up so that players using enhanced hivesight would be able to "see" marine structures that are within a certain distance of kharaa structures or players, with the radius of detection increasing per level. Say, lvl1 would let you see within siege radius, lvl2 could perhaps double that, and by lvl3 you should be able to see a very large portion of the map. If enhanced hivesight worked like that, it might be at least a little bit more attractive than it is now, and it would be a little more interesting and varied in its uses rather than being just another tool to help skulks ambush(like cloak, silence, celerity, etc). I imagine most kharaa players still won't use it too often, so it wouldn't be too crippling on marines ability to sneak a siege base next to a hive, but kharaa using it early on could better watch for and attack marine outposts as they're being established, and give them a better idea of what's waiting in said outposts without having to suicide-run into them(although, it's such fun doing that!...or not). Basically, making enhanced hive sight detect buildings would make it a somewhat useful thing earlier in the game, without making it overpowered, repetitive(oh yay, another skulk-ambush tool), or a clone of other things(namely MT).
So how about it? Am I just jabbering ideas that have already been tossed out and beat down? Am I just being silly? Should I finally just shut up and end this post already? I think I will shut up and end this post, now... <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
Maybe something possible would be that the number of hives you have increases the effectiveness of cloaking from a base standpoint. So 1 sensory chamber and no hives means you'd have something between 33-50% cloak. 3 sensory chamber and no hives still gets you 33-50% cloak, but you can cloak much faster. 1 hive would increase this maybe between 50-66%? And 2 hives would make it the value it would be in 1.04f (or g, or whatever level they're on now.), be it 80-90%. Three hives (which 90% of the time means endgame) would provide players with full cloak.
Or, an alternative set of numbers is 33-50% cloak 0 hives, 80% cloak 1 hive, 90% 2 hives, and 100% 3 hives? That would make it viable early-game weapon, gradually increasing the more hives the team has.
Yet still another alternative (I'm just bursting with ideas <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> ) would be that with cloaking you gradually cloak at a... doh, I don't know the mathematical term for this. Inverse square? Basically, you start cloaking, then gradually increase cloak, but the rate at which you increase would be much slower the further on, but never quite reaching 100%. But more chambers would get a much faster rate.
So, let's say you have 1 chamber up. You start to cloak, and after a few seconds you're at 50%. A few seconds more, you're only at 66%. Several seconds later, and you're at 75%. Wait half a minute more, and you're at 85%. A minute later finds you at 90%. 5 minutes later you're at 95%. Half an hour later, you're at 99%. The more sensory chambers, the quicker you cloak, so with 3 chambers you get to 85% cloaking in a few seconds. Would it be possible to use this? As in, you gradually fade smoothly?
Movement has some kinda handy upgrades even early on- celerity to make greased-lightning-fast skulks, adrenaline to give lerks a little more flying and shooting time before they run out of juice, and silencing for more subtle skulk movements and ambushings, not to mention setting it up in an outpost(i.e. if you take over mess hall or somesuch important non-hive location) gives you a quick way to hop back to your hive. Def is ENORMOUSLY useful- carapace and regen for obvious reasons, redemption(kinda, I'm actually glad they're improving this one, makes it a little more viable choice compared to the others), AND it heals up buildings and units next to it.
That leaves sensory....Cloak can be useful, on par with celerity or silence for helping skulk ambushes, but scent of fear and hivesight? Scent of fear is kinda handy, but early on when it's skulks vs. non-upgraded LA/LMG marines, either the marines will die or the skulks, there's not a lot of middle ground of wounded troops surviving, and if the skulks get trounced you can see where it happened and from that get a sense of where the marines are going and what they're doing(especially if you have decent team communication).
Then there's enhanced hivesight...Has anyone ever actually used it? I don't especially want to bash it myself, having never actually used it before, but can anyone out there that has used it vouch for it's lack of value, ESPECIALLY early in the game? Or am I off the deep end on that? My gut instinct and fact that I've never even HEARD of anyone using it tells me that it needs some drastic reworking- perhaps something for 1.1? Either way, with 1.1 or 1.04, it needs serious help to come even close to being as valuable as any other upgrade. But how? Given that hive sight is that nifty feature that provides us with the little circles all over indicating marines, hives, kharaa under attack, etc., it seems to me that enhancing it should improve the way hive sight works, either by showing things that were not previously available, or by providing more info about things that hivesight shows already.
The question is, which and how so...Show all location of all marines? Nice, and it would make sensory much more attractive early on, but it would completely negate the value of scent of fear, and it's far too close to marines motion tracking. Not to mention skulks already do a lot of ambush work and excell at it, so something like that could make them TOO good at ambushing. Show names/hitpoints for marines already detected by hive sight? Too much info to easily show especially when a large group is detected, plus it's just not that terribly useful, and seems too much like something that an improved version of scent of fear would have. What about...structure detection? Set it up so that players using enhanced hivesight would be able to "see" marine structures that are within a certain distance of kharaa structures or players, with the radius of detection increasing per level. Say, lvl1 would let you see within siege radius, lvl2 could perhaps double that, and by lvl3 you should be able to see a very large portion of the map. If enhanced hivesight worked like that, it might be at least a little bit more attractive than it is now, and it would be a little more interesting and varied in its uses rather than being just another tool to help skulks ambush(like cloak, silence, celerity, etc). I imagine most kharaa players still won't use it too often, so it wouldn't be too crippling on marines ability to sneak a siege base next to a hive, but kharaa using it early on could better watch for and attack marine outposts as they're being established, and give them a better idea of what's waiting in said outposts without having to suicide-run into them(although, it's such fun doing that!...or not). Basically, making enhanced hive sight detect buildings would make it a somewhat useful thing earlier in the game, without making it overpowered, repetitive(oh yay, another skulk-ambush tool), or a clone of other things(namely MT).
So how about it? Am I just jabbering ideas that have already been tossed out and beat down? Am I just being silly? Should I finally just shut up and end this post already? I think I will shut up and end this post, now... <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo-->