ARC and aliens.
SiniStarR
Join Date: 2010-04-13 Member: 71380Members
Join Date: 2010-04-13 Member: 71380Members
<div class="IPBDescription">The aoe of it all.</div>I did some experimenting on the ARC's and I got to save I love them. They feel right, they look right, they sound right, and they shoot right. I also love the touch that they do aoe damage to surrounding structures, but one thing caught my attention which brings me to the forums.
One thing I noticed about the ARC's destructive blast, is that it does not even make a dent on an alien player. What I mean is that an ARC could be ,chilling, shooting down an alien base and no aliens that are around the aoe, get damaged. While I know the weapon is a siege weapon, and has strictly been used for that purpose, I wonder if maybe aliens should take damage for just being to close to the blast. I am not saying that an alien should be insta-killed because he was in a bad place, nor am I saying seige cannons should now start targeting poor gorges and kin, but maybe aliens should take a certain amount of damage for being within a certain range of the ARC's target.
While I feel that this may idea may bother people, let me remind you that aliens have the ability to heal on infestation, crags, get healed incredibly fast by hives, has the gorges heal spray, and lastly have that fury?(forgot name) ability which heals on a kill (if researched of coarse). If a hive is under attack, aliens have a severe health advantage because the amount of health is pumped back into them. At least when compared to a marine that has to rely on either an armory or their commander who may not get to them in time, if at all.
While I am sure that the whole situation with alien heal rates will be balanced as more and more content goes in the game and balancing becomes the #1 priority, I think giving the aliens damage from indirect ARC fire, would add a brand new dynamic to the game.
Thoughts?
One thing I noticed about the ARC's destructive blast, is that it does not even make a dent on an alien player. What I mean is that an ARC could be ,chilling, shooting down an alien base and no aliens that are around the aoe, get damaged. While I know the weapon is a siege weapon, and has strictly been used for that purpose, I wonder if maybe aliens should take damage for just being to close to the blast. I am not saying that an alien should be insta-killed because he was in a bad place, nor am I saying seige cannons should now start targeting poor gorges and kin, but maybe aliens should take a certain amount of damage for being within a certain range of the ARC's target.
While I feel that this may idea may bother people, let me remind you that aliens have the ability to heal on infestation, crags, get healed incredibly fast by hives, has the gorges heal spray, and lastly have that fury?(forgot name) ability which heals on a kill (if researched of coarse). If a hive is under attack, aliens have a severe health advantage because the amount of health is pumped back into them. At least when compared to a marine that has to rely on either an armory or their commander who may not get to them in time, if at all.
While I am sure that the whole situation with alien heal rates will be balanced as more and more content goes in the game and balancing becomes the #1 priority, I think giving the aliens damage from indirect ARC fire, would add a brand new dynamic to the game.
Thoughts?
Comments
the arc feels right to me, i have no problem how it is working. not as marine and not as alien, but maybe thats only
because im too used to ns1 siege turrets.
the only problems i see with your idea would be, that arcs would take the role of the grenade launcher module away
and that as alien player it could feel lame to get killed through the wall
One of the stupidest things in NS1 was how marines could just fortify a couple rooms and drop some cannons and ta-da the entire map is cleared of alien structures. The Arc should NOT be able to shoot through walls, and it should NEVER do damage to alien players. It's just so silly and it makes no sense oh marines can suddenly blow up a whole base without even risking a single marine or marine structure. OK well I want hydras to do damage through walls then.
herp derp check it out i killed a bunch of spawning aliens and I wasnt even in the same room herp derp I'm so good at natural selection. Things that take away from the skill of the game need to be filtered out. Marines already have plenty of ways of taking down a hive, they dont need MORE WAYS. Aliens on the other hand, only have 1 way of brining down a command station. Bring the entire team and pray the marines go retarded, while half the alien team dies to sentries, and the other half is forced to run away.
While I dont think the game needs to be perfectly balanced, or to say, Everything the marines have, the aliens should have as well. There needs to be a unique side to each team. But blasting entire hive rooms through the wall is just bull ######, it takes away from the skill of the game and will make it less appealing to the masses. Arc's need to be weak and only useful in the late game, arcs should never be able to take down a whole hive room by themselves, and I don't see why they have to shoot through walls, marines should be able to send it right into a hive room and protect it, Shooting through walls is stupid dumb lazy simple, and is a mechanic STRICTLY for NEWBS.
I really hope they leave it alone until all features are complete.
They need work on pathfinding but they are doing that overall for MACs and other commanded objects.
+ Expensive (it should be)
+ Excellent at clearing a hive room of crags, whips, hydras, hives, etc.
And when i say excellent it not only does the job but the fireworks are entertaining.
+ Fragile
The ARC needs to be marched into position and guarded ... a skulk or two can take it down in no time.
This fragility balances out the magic power of the ARC.
If it starts hitting units too, then how do you counter it?
Perhaps some sort of radiation maybe, but then it would have to be a more Death Over Time attack on structures... I think this could work if an alien was in very close proximity to the structure being targetted.
I dont know that attacking aliens with this is needed though...
*edit*
I think ARC's not shooting through walls is the best idea, perhaps a tiny AOE range around the blast to compensate
Arc's can only target buildings
splash damages alien players
+ The arc should be a "glass cannon" when deployed. Strong attack (wich it already has) but weak against alien attacks.
The only thing that I think should really be changed (if it isn't just a bug) is that ARC should require a line-of-site. They should still shoot through walls, but shouldn't shoot unless the target is spotted by a marine or scanned via the observatory. This is how it worked in NS1. Currently, the ARC fires whenever there is a target in range.
Arc's can only target buildings
splash damages alien players
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but the splash damage to life-forms was removed afterwards. i remember the time when siege cannon up = bunch of dead skulks in hive room =
marines march in and finish the job. most of the time you could not even avoid it. you respawned and died instantly. this
mechanic was lame (damage on players), im glad that they missed this developement step in NS2 now and made arcs as they
are right now.
i also think that the devs are quite sathisfied with the arc as it is now, i doubt they gonna make any changes soon (except of fixing pathing)
Perhaps if you've played a single game of marine commander you'd know that map structure and layout coupled with onsloughts of extremely fast bipedal scythe monsters would make ARCs extremely redundant and a waste of resources.
Saying that ARCs are for noobs is quite ironic.
In honesty an Alien team has to be pretty bad if they can't scout and see an armoured tank with an entire team of guards moving through the map, and then assemble the appropriate counter offensive.
I main Alien Comm and it would be plain embarrassing if the team couldnt take out an ARC.
I don't find it overpowered at all, in fact it creates an opportunity where marines are preoccupied on a single path, thus allowing the rest of the Kharaa to create a surprise push towards the Marine base.
And it would put a bit more stress on the gorges, so they can't keep on healing without retreating.
One of the stupidest things in NS1 was how marines could just fortify a couple rooms and drop some cannons and ta-da the entire map is cleared of alien structures. The Arc should NOT be able to shoot through walls, and it should NEVER do damage to alien players. It's just so silly and it makes no sense oh marines can suddenly blow up a whole base without even risking a single marine or marine structure. OK well I want hydras to do damage through walls then.
herp derp check it out i killed a bunch of spawning aliens and I wasnt even in the same room herp derp I'm so good at natural selection. Things that take away from the skill of the game need to be filtered out. Marines already have plenty of ways of taking down a hive, they dont need MORE WAYS. Aliens on the other hand, only have 1 way of brining down a command station. Bring the entire team and pray the marines go retarded, while half the alien team dies to sentries, and the other half is forced to run away.
While I dont think the game needs to be perfectly balanced, or to say, Everything the marines have, the aliens should have as well. There needs to be a unique side to each team. But blasting entire hive rooms through the wall is just bull ######, it takes away from the skill of the game and will make it less appealing to the masses. Arc's need to be weak and only useful in the late game, arcs should never be able to take down a whole hive room by themselves, and I don't see why they have to shoot through walls, marines should be able to send it right into a hive room and protect it, Shooting through walls is stupid dumb lazy simple, and is a mechanic STRICTLY for NEWBS.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i can only hope you hate ns2, so at least the game will make sense and be fun.. saying siege cannon placement took no skill to hold and use tells me everything you know about the game. -_- first off sieges had limited range, and you had to place multiple sieges to kill a hive. plus if the aliens had multiple gorges and dcs the hive STILL could be a pain to take down. all this time youre being constantly attacked by aliens hitting and running from the hive.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Arc's need to be weak and only useful in the late game, arcs should never be able to take down a whole hive room by themselves, and I don't see why they have to shoot through walls, <i><b>marines should be able to send it right into a hive room and protect it</b></i>, Shooting through walls is stupid dumb lazy simple, and is a mechanic STRICTLY for NEWBS.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
laughable at best. yea, you go right into any hive around the time marines have arcs, and against any decent alien team there will be some kind of defense (even better if aliens still had hive movement, which they should anyway).
ok unless you still to super nintendo games, i highly doubt youve never played ANY games where you cannot shoot through walls. and the arc, like the siege cannon from ns1, doesnt fire projectiles.. i thought the huge lightburst effect gave that away.
That way you could identify where the fire is coming from, and it'd be a little easier to look at.
In essence it would all be based on particles and sprites..no actual physics or geometry changing events..just visual "oooooh"
Sure it still might not make perfect sense, but in sci-fi, pseudo-sense is good enough :P
Sorry if this makes little sense or has a major flaw..I just thought of it when someone said they couldn't make sense of an ARC shooting through walls without something happening to the wall.
should do splash damage, definitely.
I'm not sure why so many people think the ARC is fine. It completely sucks right now, but this is due to the its many bugs and dumb path finding. Once they fix that, then we can see if we are still in love with it. AOE damaging the aliens is an option to consider, if the ARC is still on the weak side.
This has resulted in commanders who know how to take advantage of the ARCs range placing them in areas of the map that have large VOID between them and taking out structures in different parts of the map.
I don't really like this... I think that there should be line of sight or obs ping to allow a ARC to fire, only makes sense that you have to make an effort to use such a powerful weapon.
Since it's sonic, I think that instead of actually damaging the aliens the shockwave off the blast should knock you stupid for a second. Blur your vision and make your hearing fuzzy.
? bad? terrible? genius?
If you by direct LOS mean that marines can scout for it too (not only the ARC as it sounds), as well as scan. Then it's good.
Since it's sonic, I think that instead of actually damaging the aliens the shockwave off the blast should knock you stupid for a second. Blur your vision and make your hearing fuzzy.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It uses gravity mumbojumbo to generate an effect <i>similar to a sonic boom</i>, is what the official lore says IIRC. But I'll admit I had the same wrong idea for the longest time.
I like the arc. It's a better alternative to the pg/tf/siege minbases outside cargo from NS1. But then again, there was nothing wrong with that mechanic, either.
Also, siege weaponry in NS uses sonic frequencies to generate a sonic boom inside alien structures. Flayra wrote a story many years ago explaining it called "Seven days in sanjii" or something along those lines. Go google it.
EDIT: Here's the original lore:
<a href="http://3-pg.com/urd/manual/weapons_siege.html" target="_blank">http://3-pg.com/urd/manual/weapons_siege.html</a>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Siege turrets generate their own gravitational field effect, which can register all objects with more than a few pounds of mass within its radius. The shape-signatures of the objects are matched against its database, and any hostile patterns are eliminated. Alien structures have been successfully added to this database. <b>The turret manipulates its gravitational field to induce a catastrophic effect – much like a sonic boom – that ignores intervening barriers and walls.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
that was great! If you played on a server where both teams knew "defend/attack cargo!!!" those matches were always pretty intense,
especially in public :) other epic moments i had only in old ns_eclipse (at ns 1.03) or when marines decided to relocate
to third hive -> wave by wave of onoses (happened quite often in generator in ns_cage) :)
Saying that ARCs are for noobs is quite ironic.
In honesty an Alien team has to be pretty bad if they can't scout and see an armoured tank with an entire team of guards moving through the map, and then assemble the appropriate counter offensive.
I main Alien Comm and it would be plain embarrassing if the team couldnt take out an ARC.
I don't find it overpowered at all, in fact it creates an opportunity where marines are preoccupied on a single path, thus allowing the rest of the Kharaa to create a surprise push towards the Marine base.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
YAY common sense and reason! WHOOOO!
+1
? bad? terrible? genius?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You mean exactly how it worked in NS1?
Seems better autofiring at structures in range.