Hive 3 Weapons
eaglec
Join Date: 2002-11-25 Member: 9948Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2002-11-25 Member: 9948Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">discussion</div> I think we have some issues with hive 3 weapons in ns.
Xeno, I love it. No change required... probably
Web, a very defensive 3rd hive weapon and also hard to use effectively with the web restrictions. Especially on large maps. Probably best left alone
Primal Scream, very rarely used because of the addrenaline cost it offers the lerk very little bonus - teamwork being such a rare thing these days - can this slot be used better?
Acid Rocket, really no more aggressive than cheap shower gel. They move slowly and its hard to get a direct hit at range, when you do you get so little damage. Again pointless against HA's and buildings.
Charge, 90% useless against anything but blindfolded light armour marines who have preferably been stripped of all guns and sharp implements. Even against buildings its useless as you slip off and one charge is not enough to destroy most buildings even if you wedge yourself against them. (I'd also like to consider devour and stomp in this thread but to a lesser extent)
ok, so the first three are ok but Charge and Acid rocket should be thought over and rather than the normal nerf/beef up approach I thought it might be nice to consider what would really work, what state the game is in at 3 hives and where is shouldbe going.
At 3 hives the tables have turned and the aliens should have the upper hand. If the marines still control the map then its about 50/50 but generally the aliens need the map to take the hives. Marines are going to need plenty of res to fight 3 hive aliens.
Moving straight to the fade, what at 3 hives makes it more threatening? How is it better equiped to end the game? I see the 3 hive fade as the anti-personel weapon. Acid rocket is just not effective enough for 3 hives. So two options, ramp up the damage on acid rocket (cheap and easy but is that really going to be the best way?) or replace it... have a think about this. I'll post my idea later in the thread.
Onos charge is near useless. The onos is the tank, tanks are not deployed against personel in general, they destroy other tanks and installations. The third hive weapon for an onos should be to rip a base apart, if its charge then the damage should be hugely increased and it should knockback marines, but why not something else? Something better to make the 3 hive onos better equiped to end the game... again. I'll post my idea later but I'd like you to post yours.
Word of advice with your ideas, keep them simple and they'll tend to work better. Things like spumbra will just be laughed at.
last note: Should this be in S&I ? Maybe, but it directly relates to the beta, not 2.0 or the next final version. If there is anything in this thread that the devs like or that there is enough public support for it might be tryable before 3.0 final.
Xeno, I love it. No change required... probably
Web, a very defensive 3rd hive weapon and also hard to use effectively with the web restrictions. Especially on large maps. Probably best left alone
Primal Scream, very rarely used because of the addrenaline cost it offers the lerk very little bonus - teamwork being such a rare thing these days - can this slot be used better?
Acid Rocket, really no more aggressive than cheap shower gel. They move slowly and its hard to get a direct hit at range, when you do you get so little damage. Again pointless against HA's and buildings.
Charge, 90% useless against anything but blindfolded light armour marines who have preferably been stripped of all guns and sharp implements. Even against buildings its useless as you slip off and one charge is not enough to destroy most buildings even if you wedge yourself against them. (I'd also like to consider devour and stomp in this thread but to a lesser extent)
ok, so the first three are ok but Charge and Acid rocket should be thought over and rather than the normal nerf/beef up approach I thought it might be nice to consider what would really work, what state the game is in at 3 hives and where is shouldbe going.
At 3 hives the tables have turned and the aliens should have the upper hand. If the marines still control the map then its about 50/50 but generally the aliens need the map to take the hives. Marines are going to need plenty of res to fight 3 hive aliens.
Moving straight to the fade, what at 3 hives makes it more threatening? How is it better equiped to end the game? I see the 3 hive fade as the anti-personel weapon. Acid rocket is just not effective enough for 3 hives. So two options, ramp up the damage on acid rocket (cheap and easy but is that really going to be the best way?) or replace it... have a think about this. I'll post my idea later in the thread.
Onos charge is near useless. The onos is the tank, tanks are not deployed against personel in general, they destroy other tanks and installations. The third hive weapon for an onos should be to rip a base apart, if its charge then the damage should be hugely increased and it should knockback marines, but why not something else? Something better to make the 3 hive onos better equiped to end the game... again. I'll post my idea later but I'd like you to post yours.
Word of advice with your ideas, keep them simple and they'll tend to work better. Things like spumbra will just be laughed at.
last note: Should this be in S&I ? Maybe, but it directly relates to the beta, not 2.0 or the next final version. If there is anything in this thread that the devs like or that there is enough public support for it might be tryable before 3.0 final.
Comments
- Make the onos invunerable to all non-explosive weapons while charging.
- Triple or quadruple the damage to strcutures from charge. Any structure the onos touches when it is charging should be heavily damaged. I'd really love it if charge was able to literally pick up marine structures and push them in front of the onos, leaving a huge pile of jumbled metal and fizzing wires against a wall. But engine limitations won't alllow that most likely.
- Marines should be knocked flying and when they land be stunned for 2 - 3 seconds.
Acid rocket is pathetic. It's like being assulted with a nerf ball. The solution is pretty simple; bring it back to 1.04 standards. It was perfect then, just at the wrong hive.
Primal Scream needs a lower adrenaline cost and a much longer duration. That should fix it; as an alien player I love getting Primal Screamed, but it goes away so quickly that it's really not worth it for the Lerk to sit there constantly screaming.
Increase the number of webs allowable in an area/map. They've been nerfed so much that they're hardly a threat anymore.
As for xenocide... I'd also be interested in tieing Focus to the number of hives. At one hive, Focus affects weapons 1 & 2 (this really only affects heal-spray, spore and parasite). At 2 hives, it affects weapon 3. At 3 hives, weapon 4. This puts xeno-focus back into Classic whilst leaving it out of Combat. In Classic, xenofocus was fantastic for finishing off the marines; in Combat it was overpowered.
- Unlimited amount, but like with OC's; limited to XX amount in the same area.
- Minimum time held increased to 2 or 3 seconds.
Acid rocket:
- Was pretty good already in v1.04, so I'd say that the damage should be increased a lot. The catch is that the damage should persist over a time like with real acid; not 100 points of damage right away, but during XX seconds.
Charge:
- Insta-smash turrets or throw the off, throw of marines and damage them (getting trampled hurts like hell, no?), speed increase capped (so celerity won't make you a speed-bunny), move buildings on contact (to prevent CC blocking).
Primal:
- Is pretty good as it is, if only lerk flight were free.
Those were my ideas of what would be ideal fixes.
This is more towards the marines not the buildings, but if a Onos charged at you, shouldn't you be pushed out of the way <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->
This would Benefit the onos if he was going towards the structure while charging and marines were blocking the way I.E. if it were the CC.
Make sense, No?
But it is all true, they need some serious buffing up...an onos is a joke nowadays...said it before...an onos shouldn't be a hit and run unit, it should charge in and cause havoc...the hit and run tactics can be performed by the fade which is more suitable for it anyway...
All the 3 hive damage dealing abilities should do blast damage. That would end those dull, stupid, painful, eternal, universally despised end game marine base cracking scenarios a lot quicker.
- Xeno : No Change. Xeno owns right now. It strips off all armor and softens up marines. Perfect ability. Don't complain if you aren't getting 4+ xeno kills in a row; the idea is that it strips ARMOR, and is not an insta gib device.
- Webs : Most powerful alien ability in the game
- Primal Scream : Make the duration of primal scream last from 4 seconds to 6 seconds. This would make this ability benificial not only for the user, but other aliens as well and would be much easier to use. Primal scream is really effective, just too hard for the normal player to use. Hell, it's really hard to use in scrims.
- Acid Rocket : Flayra doesn't want an attack that newbs just spam at the enemy and kill them with. He doesn't want to remove the melee element from the game that acid rockets do, so he nerfs it down to 25 damage so you just use it to soften up marines before going in for the kill. However, right now it's useless against HA and even against lightly armored marines it sucks pretty badly.
What should happen to acid rocket is make it deal 'acidic' damage, so that it only hurts armor, and it deals 40 damage. This would make the attack incredibly effective at anti-personel but it would never be able to kill anything.
- Charge : Right now it deals 300 dmg a second. Bring it up to 1000 dmg a second, and you will see charge at 1/4 of it's former glory, which is fine.
- Xeno : No Change. Xeno owns right now. It strips off all armor and softens up marines. Perfect ability. Don't complain if you aren't getting 4+ xeno kills in a row; the idea is that it strips ARMOR, and is not an insta gib device.
- Webs : Most powerful alien ability in the game
- Primal Scream : Make the duration of primal scream last from 4 seconds to 6 seconds. This would make this ability benificial not only for the user, but other aliens as well and would be much easier to use. Primal scream is really effective, just too hard for the normal player to use. Hell, it's really hard to use in scrims.
- Acid Rocket : Flayra doesn't want an attack that newbs just spam at the enemy and kill them with. He doesn't want to remove the melee element from the game that acid rockets do, so he nerfs it down to 25 damage so you just use it to soften up marines before going in for the kill. However, right now it's useless against HA and even against lightly armored marines it sucks pretty badly.
What should happen to acid rocket is make it deal 'acidic' damage, so that it only hurts armor, and it deals 40 damage. This would make the attack incredibly effective at anti-personel but it would never be able to kill anything.
- Charge : Right now it deals 300 dmg a second. Bring it up to 1000 dmg a second, and you will see charge at 1/4 of it's former glory, which is fine. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
good points!
I like the idea with the acidic damage of the fade
Hive 3 weapons don't need to be balanced against fully teched marines. They should dominate them. Marines should only be able to come back from hive 3 if they act extremely quickly to take down one of the hives before the aliens can make use of it. If the aliens take control of all the crucial areas of the map and marines aren't able to stop them, I don't want to see these 15 minute campfests with a possibility of marine comeback; marines should be annihilated when the alien team shows up at their door with hive 3 weapons.
At least the ones that need it (primal, acid, charge).
At least the ones that need it (primal, acid, charge). <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
As has been said before why are combat and ns games not balanced seperately? If it truly is not possibly to have an acid rocket do 100pts of damage in one and 25 in the other and the needs of one game ruin the playability of the other then perhaps the two games do not belong in the same mod after all.
It looks like 90% of players here agree than Acid Rockets and Charge are weak, (no great suprise) but there are some interesting other ideas too.
One comment was that making the acid rocket useful would mean it gets spammed by newbs. Personally at hive 3 a good hard acid spam is no bad thing, and if Flayra was so strongly against spam why did he double its rof?
I agree the obvious and possibly best solution is to simply up the damage but as I promised I'd add my idea after some conversation. I was thinking if acid rockets are spammy and currently useless too, how about replacing the ability wit something useful to a close assault trooper like the fade? Disarm was my throught. A strike to the front quarter of a marine knocks the weapon out of the marines hands 'x' meters in a random direction. Why? Well it fits with the fade and also it would allow the fades to prep the way for the alien onslaught. A team might send two fades in to disarm as many of the hmg. gl carriers as possible and then follow with the onos after the big guns have been put away.
as for charge I think the best thing that can be done is a massive increase in the damage per touch, and a knockback on all marines. As has been suggested by you lot already. An unupgraded LA marine should die in one touch to an onos charge. Is that unfair? Not when you are comparing unupgraded marines to 3rd hive top tier aleins, no.
Charge...I <i>could</i> repeat what just about every member here feels, but I won't bother. Bigger damage, and knock light armored Marines about. 'Nuff said.
I'd love to see Xenocide with blast damage for even one build.
Xeno: Blast damage back. I know flayra... turret farms are oh so sexah to you, but others dont enjoy them.
Web: No change other then being able to place web even at the limit, just strip the oldest webbing away (much better then having a totally useless ability when the limit is reached)
Primal: Duration needs to go up...
Acid Rocket: Many ways to handle this idea... but dont get rid of it! Burning damage is a good idea... But let it do damage to Health after the armor is gone. Have it be a slow steady burn (which stacks with more ARs) that takes a long time to get done burning. Also allow marines to stop the burning by getting welded and/or getting hit with a medpack, considering we dont want fades killing with ARs... we want them killing with swipe.
Charge: Honestly i dont like it... i dont like it one bit. I would much rather see an ability that allows the onos to take more damage, especially considering how pitifully weak he is against high tech marine weapons. Either a short invulnerability type attack, or a umbra like attack, both would drain like charge and stays as long as there is adrenaline to burn.
Make it do 4 times the current damage, but make it also require 5 times the energy with a low, low rate of fire.
This would:
Discourage acid spam.
Turn AR into a skill-based sniper weapon.
Let a fade fire a shot to soften up marines.
Go well with the fade's "hit and run" concept.
Whatcha think?
Nope
Make it do 4 times the current damage, but make it also require 5 times the energy with a low, low rate of fire.
This would:
Discourage acid spam.
Turn AR into a skill-based sniper weapon.
Let a fade fire a shot to soften up marines.
Go well with the fade's "hit and run" concept.
Whatcha think? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like your concept the best although I think 5x the addrenaline is high, I think a fade should be able to fire two. After all these are mopping up weapons we are talking about.
4x current damage is also only 100points, if it could burn over time while being cancellable by a medpack I'd rather see 200points of damage over 15 seconds with it stripping the armour first. On buildings I think it should damage them the same. If it has to be a one hit damage then I'd suggest just enough to take out an unupgraded la marines in one hit. 140?
As no one has commented I'll assume that replacing AR with 'disarm' was a bad suggestion. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Safe assumption.
Having AR be a sniper weapon sounds very interesting to me. Being able to kill one marine from a distance would be appreciated. After that, the marines get a hefty period of time to chase it down, at which point the fade goes into melee mode.
Even doing 100 damage, meaning that it takes two hits to kill a marine would be decent, depending on the rof. Adreneline drain should be very high.
What I'd really like to see though, is Focus effecting all weapons again.... that would make xeno slightly better (if priming time is increased, we won't have the problems we had in earlier betas I think) would make AR better (I think having focus apply would be a good thing on TOP of increasing AR damage) and... well, I was going to say might make charge a weapon again, but I doubt that somehow. Charge just needs to be fixed.
Safe assumption.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
you meanie <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Even~Flow,
I like the charge up idea but I'm not sure the extra coding would be worth it.
Lets hope these things are sorted for beta54
Me likey. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> It would also be cool if a charged rocket had a much greater splash radius...though the only drawback I can see is having to repeatedly click the fire button for each rocket you wanted to spam. Live with it. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
At least the ones that need it (primal, acid, charge). <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Level requirements need to be made in addition to point requirements. Hive 3 weps could be balanced for classic and combat at the same time.
The max should be increased significantly. HOWEVER, there needs to be a delay before it 'solidifies' so then it cannot be used as a weapon on the go, but works perfectly fine as a trap.
This has been suggested again and again and again, by pretty much everyone whose ever visited this board.
Webbing lone HA rambo marines and spitting them to death was THE thing to do in earlier versions, didnt happen to me for quite a while now which makes me sad.
At least the ones that need it (primal, acid, charge). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Level requirements need to be made in addition to point requirements. Hive 3 weps could be balanced for classic and combat at the same time. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You just gave me an idea ("oh god not another one", "yes, but listen...")
In co, why not increase the xp aliens require for each level BUT give them free hive 2 weapons at lvl 5 and hive 3 weapons at lvl 9. Might need to tweak some of the other costs and perhaps even cap aliens at lvl 8 (in which case new attacks at lvls 4 and 7) but this might make it easier to balance co and ns under the same rules.
Back to the topic... now is anything going to be done about these things?