George Building & Alien RTS
Decipher
Join Date: 2003-06-19 Member: 17512Members
Join Date: 2003-06-19 Member: 17512Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Thoughts and comments given marine discussion</div>Hey Guys,
Well there has been plenty of talk and support for marine building.
I think the majority agreed it was a worthwhile change (even if you were not interested in building).
However I think the other side of the coin the RTS for the George/alien side is also a little lack lustre.
I personally loved the Gorge in NS1 and loved playing a support role. Now while I can see it still has a role it does seem diminished in an RTS sense. Also given Marines are now able to build I think should an alien sneak past marines they should have an option to Ninja Build things.
I'll open this thread to discussions and will throw my idea's out;
1. Commander can spawn Drifters from a George (It will spit out a drifter to build).
2. Commander can simply place Nodes, hives within a short vicinity of the gorge (Maybe the same distance that the Hydra spits).
3. The Commander can teleport drifters to any gorge on the map, possible limitations may include a stun period after a teleport (e.g. the drifter becomes stunned for 1-5 seconds)
4. George needs to get an upgrade to allow them to have any/all of the above done. (e.g. an extra 2 resources of the individuals pool).
5. George has two 'modes' one being the offensive currently proposed and a more support role allowing it to do some of the above by replacing an offensive ability (such as perhaps the Hydra with 'Spawn Drifter')
I do think Georges need to be more heavily involved in the RTS aspect should they wish, to bring further immersion into the alien side of the RTS game. Love to hear others thoughts and ideas on the issue. Cheers.
Well there has been plenty of talk and support for marine building.
I think the majority agreed it was a worthwhile change (even if you were not interested in building).
However I think the other side of the coin the RTS for the George/alien side is also a little lack lustre.
I personally loved the Gorge in NS1 and loved playing a support role. Now while I can see it still has a role it does seem diminished in an RTS sense. Also given Marines are now able to build I think should an alien sneak past marines they should have an option to Ninja Build things.
I'll open this thread to discussions and will throw my idea's out;
1. Commander can spawn Drifters from a George (It will spit out a drifter to build).
2. Commander can simply place Nodes, hives within a short vicinity of the gorge (Maybe the same distance that the Hydra spits).
3. The Commander can teleport drifters to any gorge on the map, possible limitations may include a stun period after a teleport (e.g. the drifter becomes stunned for 1-5 seconds)
4. George needs to get an upgrade to allow them to have any/all of the above done. (e.g. an extra 2 resources of the individuals pool).
5. George has two 'modes' one being the offensive currently proposed and a more support role allowing it to do some of the above by replacing an offensive ability (such as perhaps the Hydra with 'Spawn Drifter')
I do think Georges need to be more heavily involved in the RTS aspect should they wish, to bring further immersion into the alien side of the RTS game. Love to hear others thoughts and ideas on the issue. Cheers.
Comments
I also think that those new builders are nice too.
Now the question is, who gets what role.
what about inversing the current ns2 way?
The gorges would be able to build rts, the builders not, but the builders would be used to build support structures (but the gorge would still be able to build them).
the idea isn't totaly developed yet, i agree. but i think letting the command build hydras would work quite well. only problem, he can't build them on the walls etc.
Having it the proposed marine way, where marine can build, but slower, could be an idea too.
If gorges and builders could build everything (perhaps the builders could not build absolutely everything, only a subset, so that gorges would be needed), individual players could have theyr local strategy as a gorge, and the commander would still be able to have the global strategy.
just throwing ideas around, i will think about it some more.
I think Gorges should be able to speed up the building speed of any structures
Building and plasma gaining speeds should generally be much slower, about 1/3 of the current speed - rine side as well - guess its this high because its alpha...
They should also be able to place RTs and DCs (whatever the name is in ns2 :p ) - because otherwise they aren't really a builder class...
And how stupid would that be?
"Commander place me a DC here... no HERE not there!" ... "Oh Commander I need another DC here... Come oooon pleeease? ... Please? Damn you!" ... Eject vote appears
If there has to be an alien commander he could still do all the upgrades, place waypoints, use drifters offensivly (flashbang?), place the other chambers, drop "health" or something and spawn dynamic infestation...
Something like hivemind or something would be better..
Are you sure George is ok with this? I think it would be more of Ringo's thing
Just take the micro management off the commanders.
I cant possibly imagine anyone wanting to risk a heartattack while zooming all over the map to spew out 100 commands per second.
So the gorge could be the main expander of the kharaa infestation thingy. Building rt's, hives. Which a small bit of infestation forms around rt's and a gorge can still vomit infestation for the commander to build whips and other structures on.
Leaving the hive to be more of a trapmaster role, placing traps and support structures in his domain. And having the gorge be primary expander, building hydras and taking res nodes and tech points for the kharaa.
So the gorge could be the main expander of the kharaa infestation thingy. Building rt's, hives. Which a small bit of infestation forms around rt's and a gorge can still vomit infestation for the commander to build whips and other structures on.
Leaving the hive to be more of a trapmaster role, placing traps and support structures in his domain. And having the gorge be primary expander, building hydras and taking res nodes and tech points for the kharaa.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like that. I realy do! It seperates both team's game mechanic from each other and requires the marines to actually clear infestation.
Maybe that stuff slowly damages marine buildings as well if unchecked (but can not grow out of infested rooms until a gorge buffs it with the rolling pin).
Is there a purification device besides flamethrowers?
Like replace the bilebomb with the multiple use infestation spreader. Having it also damage structures by clogging them up with goop.
<!--quoteo(post=1792716:date=Aug 7 2010, 10:22 AM:name=RobB)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobB @ Aug 7 2010, 10:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1792716"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Is there a purification device besides flamethrowers?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Grenade explosions? Unsure how balanced that would be though.
And look crap...
And make too much symatery...
I think the Gorge should build EVERYTHING.
But only be able to DROP hydras.
The Commander should have to drop all chambers and all RT's and all hives.
But could only do it within proximity of a gorge...
Makes perfect sence.
How about letting gorges be able to select and control drifters as well? I mean not move them around but be able to tell a drifter to "follow" them, and give acces to the build menu off them.
Can even be done as simple as "using" the drifter, which'll then enable a buildmenu accessable by hotkey for the advanced structures. I mean your not going to build an RT or <name your new alien upgrades building here> in the heat of battle. Using the drifters again disables follow. Beeing able to build drifters yourself (off your own points maybe?) would add to that.
Battlegorges simply don't press that horkey and don't use a drifter.
Edit: reading that again though... wouldn't that take the point out of the alien commander? Usually in NS1 after 5 minutes there where 2 gorges left, one saving for the hive and one building chambers across the map. Wouldn't the commander simply replace the one saving up for the hive?
At least until slugs start to heal aliens.
Give up on NS2, I think. Just remake NS1. Everyone will be happy enough, I think.
Give up on NS2, I think. Just remake NS1. Everyone will be happy enough, I think.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh yeah heaven's forbid we actually discuss the game and idea's. In a stage where they can be easaly modified to test other situations.
No let's wait till version 0.98 where almost everything is interconnected and changing 1 thing changes the entire game to check individual mechanics.
How about you add to the discussion or leave it alone? If the conclusion is nothing needs to be changed, why are you getting so worked up?
Oh, and have a little more faith in UWE. As in, beeing able to weigh the ideas of the community besides just making a game. Afterall if your only calling on them to not listen to us, why should they listen to you?
Give up on NS2, I think. Just remake NS1. Everyone will be happy enough, I think.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I somewhat agree with the above. Although we are in Alpha, we know very little about the gorge and alien commander setup.
I do agree with the model they have gone, and you will notice most of the suggestions are still a fair way from the old NS1 model.
We are not suggesting removing the Alien commander, purely immersing the george more in the RTS side of it similar to our requests of the marines.
Now given its early in the alpha much is still unknown, but rather than leave it till things are finalised and we find out perhaps there was a better way, I thought it would be beneficial to discuss the communities thoughts on how people see the George finding its role in the NS2 we currently know. Flayra or any of UWE could quite easily come in here and post saying that this has already been taken into account and thats fine. But as its currently not in I feel its a worthwhile talking point.
Currently the drifters just seem insufficient, they die very quickly and are almost impossible to sneak past marines.
A skulk on the other hand could, then gestate into a George to build a hive, RTS or whatever the situation perhaps requires.
Another thought would be a gorge could have a voice menu like Marines.
Click a button get a menu 1 - 10. One could be "Place an RTS here" but obviously should be voiced over in an alien style voice.
The commander could simply 'Approve' or 'Decline' player requests (perhaps even include block or spam functions).
This would mean the commander does more macro management and doesn't have to spawn a drifter run it to each node and build an RTS (in effect micro managing everything and perhaps doing less of the organisation, informing the team and planning his/her moves)
I do agree with the model they have gone, and you will notice most of the suggestions are still a fair way from the old NS1 model.
We are not suggesting removing the Alien commander, purely immersing the george more in the RTS side of it similar to our requests of the marines.
Now given its early in the alpha much is still unknown, but rather than leave it till things are finalised and we find out perhaps there was a better way, I thought it would be beneficial to discuss the communities thoughts on how people see the George finding its role in the NS2 we currently know. Flayra or any of UWE could quite easily come in here and post saying that this has already been taken into account and thats fine. But as its currently not in I feel its a worthwhile talking point.
Currently the drifters just seem insufficient, they die very quickly and are almost impossible to sneak past marines.
A skulk on the other hand could, then gestate into a George to build a hive, RTS or whatever the situation perhaps requires.
Another thought would be a gorge could have a voice menu like Marines.
Click a button get a menu 1 - 10. One could be "Place an RTS here" but obviously should be voiced over in an alien style voice.
The commander could simply 'Approve' or 'Decline' player requests (perhaps even include block or spam functions).
This would mean the commander does more macro management and doesn't have to spawn a drifter run it to each node and build an RTS (in effect micro managing everything and perhaps doing less of the organisation, informing the team and planning his/her moves)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We won't find out if there was a better way if we're constantly turning things back to the status quo before we've had a chance to try the different version. The people here are used to the status quo. That much has been made apparant. There is a great fear of getting too far away from that status quo. My personal belief is that once the hit box registration issue is fixed, we're going to find marines dominating due to the combination of smaller maps and marine sprint ability allowing them to take control of territory faster, and the larger rooms allowing them to more easily defend it. However, do you really think anybody will now turn around and say, "Oh, maybe we need to get rid of marine building ability and try that MAC only system people were talking about," or do you think they're going to say, "We need to buff the aliens!" or even more likely, "We need to take the sprint out of the marines.. they're getting to the rooms too fast."
And bit by bit.. they'll get their reskinned NS1 back.. and the big worry is that being close to the same game, it'll wind up with close to the same player base as NS1 currently has.
Something like hivemind or something would be better..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Me voting for this!
or maybe BrainBug
then we could have COM and BUG as abbreviations ;-)
And bit by bit.. they'll get their reskinned NS1 back.. and the big worry is that being close to the same game, it'll wind up with close to the same player base as NS1 currently has.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To be honest, I dont think this is a reskinned NS1 in any form.
I think for NS2 to be successful you need to offer the core NS1 with improvements and advancements. They need to go above and beyond what was offered previously and challenge what everything done in the past to bring up the best possible implementation/s. In saying that I think thats the point of this thread, to voice our opinions to the devs to consider if their current view or implementation is perhaps the best option or whether perhaps better options exist.
Also If you deviate too far from the core aspect of the game you risk alienating the core playerbase. And the core playerbase is probably both their people who have kept money for development flowing and the primary advertising medium (word of mouth, posting on other game boards, being involved in other gaming communities, seeing steam friends playing the game) so its in UWE interests to offer a game which challenges old players, immerses and encourages new players and offers a experience thats both the same but different.
This thread as I see it is just a thread in which players can voice their opinions on how they see the best implementation on the Gorge and his role. Then the dev's can make an informed decision based on community feedback as to what they believe is the best option to proceed with and will offer the most to the game.
NS is a mod, it doesn't need drastic change, what don't you understand? CS, DOD all were ports with subtle changes, honoring what made it famous by keeping everything in tact. This title was something I was expecting the LEAST to be fidgety with making overwhelming changes, I still have faith but I get more concerned every day.
The only reason why NS1 and HL mods in general stopped being heavily populated, was simply because of technological changes. The gameplay and mechanics don't need rebuilding, they just need a tweak here and there, or else it's a completely different game.
We shouldn't have to persist and try to uphold the integrity of the original, it makes me a sad panda reading some of these posts.
NS is a mod, it doesn't need drastic change, what don't you understand? CS, DOD all were ports with subtle changes, honoring what made it famous by keeping everything in tact. This title was something I was expecting the LEAST to be fidgety with making overwhelming changes, I still have faith but I get more concerned every day.
The only reason why NS1 and HL mods in general stopped being heavily populated, was simply because of technological changes. The gameplay and mechanics don't need rebuilding, they just need a tweak here and there, or else it's a completely different game.
We shouldn't have to persist and try to uphold the integrity of the original, it makes me a sad panda reading some of these posts.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Except, DoD:S and CS:S were just source mod conversions, not sequels. This is NS2. Not NS:Spark.
but it can now be used as heavy support unit in combat,
aaar gorgerush ftw :D
In NS1, the marine commander placed structures, chose upgrades, guided expansion, and provided frontline support. The gorge performed the same function for the aliens.
In NS2, the alien commander (hopefully) performs these functions. Any support functions of the gorge will either be redundant or will need to cannibalize the functions of the alien commander. Either the gorge becomes sort of a silly evolution or the alien comm is hamstrung in ways the marine commander is not.
I would be interested to learn if the devs have a "zen statement" for the gorge which defines its essential role in the game.
providing DIRECT healing to players who do not want to go all the way back to the hive for a refresh.
and building some structures to coral marines or protect structures.
In fact I would not be surprised if the gorge patterns would make the hivemind aware of a situation or a choke point.
I believe the hivemind (alien commander) will help the game to be more easily picked up by RTS players
and will facilitate building in mid to late game. The top view is much better for realizing where expansion should be done.
They gorge will again prove to be a high value when played by very skilled players. It will also prove attractive to people learning the game as a merging of the TF engineer and medic classes.
The gorge WILL be valuable and has not gone overlooked in my mind.
The gorge WILL be valuable and has not gone overlooked in my mind.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But most of the time the Gorge was in a support hole it was behind a OC/DC/MC fortress in most situations. The gorge have Hydras as an OC replacement, but what about the other chambers?
As for RT, I don't see a real need to Gorges be able to build it (probably only speed construction). It saves resources for other important tasks.
As for RT, I don't see a real need to Gorges be able to build it (probably only speed construction). It saves resources for other important tasks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We currently don't have that information in the alpha. The only things buildable so far are hydras and RTs, with no clear upgrade or build menus for aliens yet. Maybe the upgrades are all triggered by simply building another hive?
<!--quoteo(post=1792712:date=Aug 7 2010, 03:39 PM:name=IeptBarakat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (IeptBarakat @ Aug 7 2010, 03:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1792712"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Could make it so the hivemind could only build where there is infestation. Leaving the gorge to still make hives and rt's. And making the gorge's infestation spreading move be very useful for the hivemind.
So the gorge could be the main expander of the kharaa infestation thingy. Building rt's, hives. Which a small bit of infestation forms around rt's and a gorge can still vomit infestation for the commander to build whips and other structures on.
Leaving the hive to be more of a trapmaster role, placing traps and support structures in his domain. And having the gorge be primary expander, building hydras and taking res nodes and tech points for the kharaa.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Now as for my thoughts excuse the grammar as its 5:40am.
This is a true evolution for the aliens.. just like marines get a new builder ect it will evolve to a twisted version of the Commander mode for Marines as it should be with the differing species.
Commander is trying to keep his marines alive while they destroy the infestation.
Hivemind is trying to destroy the marines attempting to destroy its children.
So the Hivemind should be predominantly more offensive BUT ONLY ABLE TO given the actions of his team where as the Marines are given situations created by the Commander to defend his constructs and further his goals, the Hivemind is directly opposite furthering the goals of the team by using abilities and buffs or debuffs with the accumulated "plasma" points.
Example: Marine is standing in a portion of infestation so the Hivemind makes that area volatile and burns the marines armor and soon enough the health to further my point for a costly move You can encase a marine in Infestation only removable via welder or something.. Go crazy with it.
Infestation teleport anyone ?
It makes sense considering the opposing factors of the species.
Taking that even further, maybe the alien comm can upgrade each hive into one with its respective upgrade. 1 - a crag hive allows the gorge to build crags, and grants the aliens access to those upgrades, and also that hive heals nearby aliens an additional X amount per tic. 2 - a shift hive that allows the gorge to build to build shifts, grants aliens access to those upgrades and also replenishes nearby aliens adren. 3 - a shade hive that allows the gorge to build shades, grants access to those upgrades and cloaks nearby aliens. The alien commander would be unable to build those chambers individually, however he/she makes the selection as to which upgrade path is followed. He would still be researching other upgrades, and building the other hives and rts, neither of which the gorge would be able to build. Hydras would still cost plasma from the gorges personal pool, however the upgrade chambers should cost carbon, and that the alien commander should have to assign carbon to the gorge, or perhaps he purchases X of the chamber, and then any gorge can drop them.
Just an idea atleast.